Tribe of the Ki Sorcerers
by Muphrid
Summary: For 20 years, the Sorcerers of Qinghai kept to themselves, using ki magic to stay hidden from the outside world, but the battle between Saffron and Ranma Saotome at Jusendo threw that magic out of balance. Now, as Ranma returns to China to claim his cure, the Sorcerers emerge from seclusion, seeking to neutralize the threat to their paradise.
1. In the Cold Rain

**Part One: Ripples**. To claim his cure, Ranma must thwart a tribe of Chinese Sorcerers who have come to Jusenkyō, drawn to the spring ground for reasons of their own.

* * *

**In the Cold Rain**

_Chapter One_

In the years since the Jusenkyō Guide had first taken up his post, many a lost traveler had come knocking on his shack's rickety door, and every one of them brought a unique flavor of trouble. From time to time, ignorant tourists sought out the spring ground, expecting that they could train atop bamboo poles over the dozens of cursed pools below. Nothing could possibly go wrong with this idea—that was their thinking, at least. Ranma was one such person, but the Guide excused him for it, since he'd been led into trying by his reckless father. The Amazons liked to train there, too, but only with disgraced warriors who, in the Tribe's judgment, deserved the punishment if they fell into a spring. Ambitious martial artists weren't the only ones to come by the small shack on the edge of the spring ground. The last visitors to drop in had been vicious bird-men, and they hadn't bothered to knock. It was all the Guide could do to get his daughter Plum to town and out of their reach, and the ensuing conflict had almost dried up the springs completely.

After that debacle, the Guide dug out the old books his predecessor had left behind on the tribal peoples of Qinghai—just in case more natives stopped by—and wondered to himself if he should've stayed in Beijing to drive horse-drawn carriages. The money wasn't nearly as good in the city, though, and with the remoteness of Jusenkyō, there was a certain appeal to being immersed in nature. Indeed, the Guide had never had problems with the animals. Only when people arrived did bad things tend to happen.

Then again, when the Guide had received a call from Tōkyō earlier that week, he knew mayhem and chaos were well on their way. He just didn't expect them to come pounding on his door—_rap_, _rap_, _rap_—quite so soon.

"Who's that, Daddy?" His daughter Plum looked up from a doodling pad, puzzled. "Is that Honored Guest from Japan here so soon?"

"I doubt it," said the Guide. "If it were, he'd be days earlier than he said he would be. Hide yourself for a moment. Let's not have a repeat of what happened last time."

Sighing, Plum crouched behind an icebox, taking her drawing pad with her. "You're worrying too much, Daddy."

Rap-rap-rap! The door rattled on its hinges again, and the Guide went to the knob. He collected himself for a moment, making sure Plum couldn't be seen, and called through the door. "Yes, hello? Who's there?"

"We understand you are a guide to this place, that you direct visitors around this spring ground."

It was a girl's voice, cold and serious. The Guide didn't recognize it. "That's right," he replied. "Who are you?"

"Visitors."

The Guide inched the door open cautiously, and with the first slivers of light from outside, he studied the strangers. There were four of them, all relatively young—around age twenty or so he guessed. Their clothes were solid black—short-sleeved shirts and long pants for each one. Three men and a girl stood before the Guide's door. The Guide guessed the girl was the leader, and despite her stern expression, he thought her fairly pretty, with her straight reddish-brown hair extending halfway down her back.

And lastly, each of the four carried a stick—thin, slender, and nearly as tall as its wielder. These weapons were capped with blunt, cast iron tips.

"So," said the Guide, eying one of these dangerous staves, "you would like to visit the spring ground?"

"We have questions for you," said the leader, the girl with the reddish-brown hair. "What happened here twenty-two days ago?"

"Twenty-two days?" The Guide laughed. "Are you sure you don't want to ask about twenty-one days ago—or twenty-three? Saying exactly twenty-two is quite particular, don't you think?"

The leader blinked, but her stony expression didn't waver.

"Ah, you must be talking about the interruption to the springs' water supply," the Guide concluded. "If it's that you're asking about, I can assure you, nothing of the sort will happen again on my watch. The culprit has already been dealt with."

"Who?" asked the leader.

"I'm sorry?"

"Who is the culprit?"

The Guide hesitated. A sweat broke out on his brow. To find strangers on his doorstep asking extremely specific questions was unsettling, even more so considering just what and who they were so curious about. If only he'd had the presence of mind to read that book on the natives of Qinghai Province a little sooner, he might've known what they were really after!

As it was, the Guide decided to be cautious. "I'm afraid I don't quite know," he said. "Some wandering martial artist took care of the problem; I really had absolutely nothing to do with it, I promise you."

The leader narrowed her eyes. "Where do we find him?"

"I really couldn't say. He left in a big, big hurry. So sorry!"

And with that, the Guide slammed the door on his visitors, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Daddy, I hope you're more convincing than that when you tell the army men no one came by the springs," said Plum, who scribbled away at her notepad nonchalantly.

"What do you mean? I don't think they suspect a thing!"

"Then why are you trying to block the door?"

The Guide jammed a chair under the doorknob, hoping to stall the door before it could move inward more than an inch. Truly, there was no hiding anything from a perceptive child, so the Guide didn't bother arguing with her. Instead, he cleared his dinner table of scattered bowls and plates, and from the back wall of the shack, he retrieved a set of scrolls, books, and parchments. He flipped through pages and notes frantically. Men with fighting staves—that was pretty unique. There had to be something in all those papers about them. Though he heard nothing from the visitors outside, the Guide searched for even a fragment of information about their kind, just in case they returned. Sure enough, in a dusty hardback from the 1960s, he found a crude drawing of warriors like the ones at his door. Their metal-tipped staves were distinctive, but what caught the Guide's eye most were the jagged, colorful bolts of lightning that emanated from the warriors' hands.

"You found something about those people?" asked Plum, coming out from her hiding place. "What does it say?"

"Hm?" He stepped back from the book, his brow furrowing with confusion. "It says they use magic."

Ka-PAM! The door splintered in two; the chair holding it there bent and shattered. A wave of air pressure pushed into the shack, and it shoved the Guide forward with all the gentleness of a sledgehammer. His body catapulted through the table. The texts ripped, spreading papers over the floor, and the Guide lay sprawled atop the shredded texts with stars in his eyes. He worked his jaw repeatedly, trying in vain to get his ears to pop.

The visitors entered through the broken door, the leader in front with her staff in one hand. She watched as two of her comrades took the Guide by his arms. They turned him on his back and pulled down his shirt by the neck.

Shink. The last visitor plunged a hollow bamboo needle into the exposed skin by the Guide's shoulder blade. The Guide went woozy and glassy-eyed. He slipped from the visitors' grasp, keeling over face-down on the floor, and the visitors took him by the arms once more to carry him away.

"Hey!" cried Plum. "Where are you taking my father?"

The leader of the visitors thrust an open hand toward the girl, and from the stranger's fingers, ripples of golden energy emanated. Plum shied away from the stranger, half-hiding behind the icebox once more, and the visitors ignored her. They left without a word, and indeed, the shack was eerily quiet.

Until a black rotary phone on the Guide's desk rang.

The Guide's feet dragged on the ground as they carried him out, and Plum didn't dare give chase.

The phone continued to ring.

Two of the strangers took the Guide on their backs between them, and with him firmly in their grasp, the Guide's feet left the ground. His captors levitated and flew, and Plum stepped through the broken doorway, staring in awe.

The phone stopped ringing, and a bulky piece of machinery spun into motion, playing a magnetic tape. "Hello, Honored Guest! You've reached the phone line of the Guide to the mystical training ground Jusenkyō! Please leave your message after the beep, and if I haven't drowned and turned into a cat or some other voiceless animal, I'll be sure to get back to you. Pleasant journey!"

BEEP.

The visitors soared skyward, taking Plum's father with them and becoming small dots in front of a blue backdrop. Only their leader remained, listening intently as the call came in.

"Hey, Guide, it's me," said the voice on the answering machine. "I was just calling to see if the weather's good at Jusenkyō. I should be there in a couple days, so if it starts to rain, maybe you could prepare another cask? Yeah, I know I didn't explain what happened to the first one or why I'm back so soon. It's a long story."

Plum blinked, turning around. Her eyes focused on the black rotary phone in the shack, which sat neatly on the Guide's desk, but the leader of the strangers saw it, too. The girl gripped her weapon tightly, and even from outside the shack, one swing of her battle staff launched a shockwave, piercing the walls and shattering the telephone and the desk it sat on. Satisfied, the leader followed her men, flying past the trees.

And with her only link to the outside world irrevocably cut, Plum could only watch the strangers go. On the horizon, wispy clouds began to roll in—the first portents of a coming storm.

#

It was a storm Saotome Ranma heard coming through the loud, grating, repetitive tone of a busy signal.

"Hello? Guide?" He distanced himself from the phone's earpiece, wincing as that irritating sound poured out. With two fingers, Ranma pressed down on the switchhook, resetting the line, and dialed again, only to get the same result: a busy signal with no trace of anyone on the other end.

A man peered out from a desk, looking at Ranma and the phone on the wall. A glass divider separated the man from the outside world, with only a small opening for cash to change hands. He spoke to Ranma haltingly, consulting a red booklet as he spoke.

"Is…there…a chestnut—ah, a _problem_, young lady?"

Ranma huffed to himself. "No, no problem," he assured the clerk at the front desk. "It was just a shorter call than I thought it would be."

The man at the front desk nodded and smiled, putting away his booklet, and Ranma thought better of explaining further. There was only so much to say to a man who needed a pocket dictionary to speak Japanese. Trying to explain a gender-changing curse and the trouble of dousing himself with more cursed water to reverse it was right out.

Puzzled by the Guide's lack of response, Ranma headed upstairs, across tiled floors and wooden steps to his room. It was a small, dinky motel he stayed in, with flat, blackened remains of discarded chewing gum sticking on the walkways and floors, never mind the odor of cigarette smoke that seemed to ooze from the walls of the lobby, practically choking him as he'd talked. Still, Ranma was in no position to be picky. In the wilds of Qinghai Province, there were few outposts of civilization to break up the arid wastes. One of them was Yushu, the last bastion of the modern world for at least two hundred miles in every direction, and as luck would have it, it was just two days' hike from Jusenkyō—the cursed training ground. That was Ranma's destination, and he wouldn't let an ear-splitting busy signal deter him.

Ranma climbed the steps to the third floor in a brisk, chilling wind. Exposed to the elements, he walked under stained, flickering lights to his room. A glow in the sky told of the coming dawn, and in the distance, the great mountains of the Himalayas loomed over the horizon, catching sunlight that had yet to fall on the town. Once sunlight hit, it would be time to go. This was Ranma's third visit to China, and he'd endeavored to make sure it was an expedient one. Unlike his last two visits, Ranma had enjoyed a reasonably quick plane ride from Japan to the central city of Lanzhou—a polluted, industrial city. From there, he took a train to Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province, and arrived there within six hours. The harder part was the long bus ride from Xining to Yushu, spanning nearly two days. The time spent didn't bother him, but the traveling conditions did, for Ranma had very little money of his own. To fund this journey, he'd needed more than a little help, and fortunately, there had been one man entirely willing to provide for his _precious_ and _darling_ pigtailed girl.

On returning to his room, Ranma made a beeline for his pack, uncovering a canteen. A good splash of water would wake his traveling companion, if only he could find him.

"Kunō?" Ranma glanced around the room, from the lumpy carpet to the hazy windows. "Where'd you go, Moneybags?" Ranma frowned, thinking back. Kunō had proved a more irritating and enthusiastic traveling companion than even Ranma had feared. Naturally, Kunō wasn't in the bed—that was Ranma's territory, and Kunō would've had a bed of his own if he hadn't insisted on only one for the both of them. No, Kunō had to be dealt with and restrained in other ways, and that's when Ranma remembered what exactly he'd done with the misguided boy.

Ranma went to the dresser under the television and opened the bottom drawer.

"There you are, Kunō. Morning."

The self-styled samurai Kunō Tatewaki lay stuffed in the drawer, his body contorted and bent. He stared up dully—his eyes open yet his mind still asleep.

Ranma felt a pang of pity at this sight. When he'd come to the Kunō estate earlier that week, dressed in a pink skirt with _frills_ of all things, he'd known there was some danger in going to Kunō. The boy had a raging attraction to his darling "pigtailed girl," and the only thing firmer than that lust was the wood of his practice sword. Ranma had hoped to use that against Kunō, persuading him to take a journey to the cursed training ground of Jusenkyō with the promise that it would help him defeat Ranma and claim both Akane and the mythical pigtailed girl. Unsurprisingly, once Ranma crafted a suitably epic tale about the legendary powers one might gain from training at Jusenkyō, Kunō came to this conclusion in roughly three seconds flat.

All in all, it was the quickest path back to China. Swimming across the Yellow Sea would've taken a few days and left him beat for the rest of the journey on foot, and Ranma wanted to avoid any unnecessary delays. His urgency should prove to anyone he was serious. He'd never been serious enough about trying to reclaim his cure, had he? If he had been, he wouldn't have taken off for home while the springs were flooded the last time he'd been in China.

On the other hand, no one had questioned his manhood then.

Ranma shook himself, putting that line of thinking out of his mind. He turned the cup of water over, and the liquid splashed over Kunō's face. "Good morning, Sempai!" he cried, his voice squeaky and chipper. "It was so gentlemanly of you to hide in the drawer to protect my virtue!"

Groggily, Kunō blinked. "I…hid myself?"

No doubt he was struggling with a very different memory, one of pretending to sleepwalk from his futon on the floor to fondle Ranma's breasts. Never mind that sleepwalking people seldom announce that they're sleepwalking while trying to feel a girl's chest. At that, Ranma had tried desperately to restrain Kunō with minimal fuss. His first attempt involved sealing Kunō in a sleeping bag by breaking off the zipper, but somehow, the man slithered back to the bed. After a couple more rounds of this nonsense, Ranma lured Kunō to the head of the bed and knocked him out cold. Perhaps the drawer was a bit much; Ranma had hoped to avoid tripping over him in case he'd needed to take a trip to the toilet overnight. Stumbling over Kunō's body might've started all that ruckus over again, but still…

"My darling, you are as luscious and beautiful as ever! It is a joy to see you at this early hour, though I regret that it makes my body react in ways I cannot control. I do apologize for that, but it means I can't quite…" He jerked in the drawer and gestured to his waist. "Perhaps you could assist me?"

With that, Ranma's pity for Kunō dimmed like a lamp on its last drop of oil. _Somebody shoot me for taking him along. Really._

Ranma left Kunō there to struggle a bit. It was only a temporary measure to keep the boy restrained while Ranma washed up and prepared their things for the hike ahead. Ranma took the half-empty canteen and went for the sink to fill it up. The sink sputtered like a wheezing giant, and a residue of dark minerals swirled around the drain.

"All right, guess we're not doing that," said Ranma, turning the faucet shut. Searching through his bag of toiletries, Ranma fished out his toothbrush and wetted the bristles with clean canteen water. He squeezed out a dab of light blue paste from a travel-size tube and looked up, into the mirror, staring at the image of a girl.

"Well?" he asked his reflection. "What do you have to say for yourself? Any last words?"

The girl in the mirror looked back with a hard, inscrutable expression.

"You know, it's not going to be long before I'm rid of you for good," Ranma went on. "You're not going to come out in a rainstorm or when I go to the beach. You'll be gone forever."

The girl in the mirror frowned, her brow furrowing in thought.

"You're part of the reason I'm not married right now," said Ranma, pointing the toothbrush at the mirror. "We would've had Shampoo and Ucchan under control, but I needed water to get rid of you. That's not to say I wanted to be married, but still—if Akane had married me without the water, she'd be marrying you, too, and a girl can't marry a girl."

Ranma's reflection raised an eyebrow.

"Well," Ranma corrected himself, "not anywhere around here, anyway. Maybe in Holland."

The girl in the mirror said nothing, and Ranma thought better of trying to talk to her. He stuck the toothbrush in his mouth and cleaned his teeth for the next minute straight. In fairness, the girl in the mirror had served him on occasion. He'd used her to taunt Ryōga from time to time, pretending to be his fiancée or his sister. He'd gone out as a girl to play tennis in the winter, tricking his perverted master Happōsai to capture him. These deceptions were her forte. They came easy to her—the girl in the mirror, who was borne of him not a part of him. She was a silent reflection, and nothing he did while in that body could really be said to come from him, could it?

Indeed, the only good thing his curse had ever done was present a non-threatening face to a girl, putting her at ease long enough to say, "I'm Akane; want to be friends?" Even that hadn't quite turned out the way they'd expected, for either of them—mostly because Ranma was never really a girl at all. That shy, casual friend his fiancée had been looking for? She didn't exist.

Perhaps that was why things had always been rocky between them. That girl had been looking for something within him that he just couldn't give. He was a man through and through. Once he went back home cured, even she would have to see that.

#

Once Kunō managed to break himself free of the drawer, he and Ranma set out. On the whole, despite the annoyances Kunō could bring, it was better to travel with a partner. One lone man, as strong as he might think himself, could slip on a rock and fall—or worse, he could wander into a den of hungry panthers and become paralyzed with fright.

And since Ranma had to go as a girl on this journey to keep Kunō pacified, he could reasonably persuade Kunō to carry both their packs. Taking that weight off Ranma's shoulders was no small benefit, either. At the very least, it let Ranma focus on navigation instead of the weight on his back or his footing. Being efficient with their path would prove key, for as daylight came, cloud cover grew over the Tibetan Plateau. Qinghai Province had seen an unusual amount of rain of late. March was supposed to be part of a dry, cold winter, but Ranma just been to Jusenkyō to see it flood from rain. On the way in, Ranma and Kunō had found the paths into town spongy and soft, so whatever the weather pattern, Ranma knew they needed to make good time. Kunō's wild blathering, however, seemed to sap Ranma's energy with every step.

"Three weeks," Kunō decided to himself, nodding confidently. "Three weeks of nonstop training, and I will humiliate Saotome and demonstrate my true worth to Tendō Akane! Oh, and to you, of course."

Ranma rolled his eyes. "Three weeks, huh? Is that all?"

"You think it will require more training to defeat him handily?"

"I think you could train there for ten years and not even scratch me—I mean, him—as long as there aren't any watermelons around."

"I fail to see what melons have to do with it."

"That's because all memory of that place has already left your brain."

Kunō stared at Ranma, mystified, like a child marveling at how two and two could add to make four. "Regardless," he went on, gazing across the Plateau, "once I have completed my training regimen, Saotome and I will duel one another atop Mount Fuji, in the snow, while blindfolded and hopping on one leg. To your raucous applause, I will overpower him! Children will speak of this feat in awe for years to come."

Ranma's gut spasmed, and he suppressed a dry heave. _Free food on the plane back to Japan versus getting away from this idiot. A smooth, quick trip back versus a rickety old ferry or swimming across an ocean yourself. Man, Kunō—how can you be so annoying that this is even something I have to seriously think about?_

"Is something wrong, pigtailed girl?"

Ranma flinched. With miles upon miles of cold, arid desert around them, there was frighteningly little to distract them from each other, and Kunō seemed to enjoy staring at Ranma's face, studying his every expression, a bit _too_ much.

"No, of course not, Sempai!" Ranma answered in the highest pitch he could maintain. "Whyever would you think that? Hehe, you're so silly! That's why I really lo—oh, I mean, why I like you so much!" His stomach twisted into a sailor's knot. _Acting sweet like that is really going to kill me. I swear._

"I'm flattered you find my company so rewarding," said Kunō, nodding proudly, "but I've been troubled since we set out. In truth, it's something that has gnawed at me every since you came to my home with word of this accursed training ground. It stirred a question within me that I cannot shake or resolve, no matter how much I apply my impressive intellect."

_By 'impressive,' do you mean, 'on par with that of an ant'?_

"Pigtailed girl, is it possible that you and Saotome…?"

_That we what, are the same person? No way. There is no way in hell that you're making this connection now. If you do, forget going to Jusenkyō. I'll stay as a girl forever and kiss your feet._

"That you and Saotome…"

_Come on, spit it out!_

"…have colluded to bring me here?"

Ranma scoffed. _Knew it._

"Please, take me seriously; I don't understand."

"I'll bet you don't," said Ranma. "Er, I mean, what don't you understand?"

"Giving me this opportunity to learn and defeat that wretch is something I relish with every passing moment, but there is no reason for you to be here, pigtailed girl. As much as I enjoy your company, I did not think I could free you from Saotome's spell until I bested him in fair combat. So, why are you here?"

Ranma looked away, his gaze lengthening to the distant horizon. "Does it matter?"

"It matters to me, pigtailed girl. If you've undertaken this task out of the generosity of your heart, I wish to thank you. If there is some other reason you've come here, I wish to assist."

_You could assist me by cutting out all this talk,_ thought Ranma, but alas, his private griping would do little to dissuade Kunō, so in frustration, he tried a different tack instead. "Tell me, Kunō—you ever had your pride, your manhood, challenged by someone important to you?"

"Whatever do you mean?"

"If I said you were weak and not strong enough for me, what would you do?"

Kunō laughed. "What a curious question. You need not pretend you dislike me, pigtailed girl. We're growing too old for such games."

_You and me aren't doing anything of the kind._

"But, if I must answer your question," Kunō went on, "I would ask what I must do to prove to you my strength and prowess, if defeating Saotome won't suffice, and I wouldn't rest until it was done."

"Then at least there's one thing we understand each other on," muttered Ranma.

"But I don't understand—what does that have to do with you?"

Ranma shrugged. "Sometimes, there are just things you have to do, and you need to do it on your own, so you can prove to yourself and anyone else who might've doubted you. You get me?"

"Of course. If you should require aid, I will provide it, but I too know the meaning of personal duty. I will not interfere if you don't wish it."

_At last, the guy is reasonable,_ thought Ranma, relieved. _Maybe we can survive this trip after all._

With that matter settled, the two trudged on in silence, and Ranma was grateful for that. The long hike to Jusenkyō would take much of his energy—energy he didn't need to waste on chatting with Kunō. The high altitude slowed both of them down, and Ranma purposefully paced himself to keep from overexertion. The thin air and desolate landscape made the Tibetan Plateau a harsh, unpleasant place, and as much as Ranma desired his cure, every minute spent in that desert knotted his stomach with foreboding and dread. The wilderness was nothing like the city. It forced a man to do what he needed to survive.

In that respect, Ranma and Kunō were no exceptions. Though Jusenkyō lay several hours ahead, Ranma and Kunō set up a camp partway through the afternoon, preparing for a cold night. While Kunō rounded up sparse twigs and branches from the runty vegetation in the area, Ranma went about finding food. A hot meal could do wonders for a man's state of mind in the wild, and Ranma had never been fond of nutrition bars. The human body worked better when it had something of substance to digest. The Plateau was scarce in berries and edible grasses, but it supported some wildlife. With pieces of string, rocks, and twigs, Ranma set snares and traps for whatever might wander into them. He checked the traps frequently, more out of boredom than any real hope of catching anything so quickly, but Ranma was in luck.

Caw!

A small, spotted bird flapped its wings in vain, pulling the string taut, but the weight of the rock on the other end kept it grounded. It was a partridge, and a feisty one at that, for as Ranma reeled it in, the bird pecked and snapped at him. Ranma didn't need it to be well-behaved, though. The spotted partridge, with lines of black around its eyes and a touch of red down near its head, would make for a fine snack when roasted over a fire. If anything, the more the bird struggled, the harder it would be for Ranma to put it down quickly and mercifully, and that was important. Just because Ranma was hungry didn't mean the bird had to suffer. It had done nothing to deserve such a fate, after all.

Not like another bird he'd run across.

Nevertheless, Ranma grabbed the partridge, holding its legs and body with one hand. The bird seemed to realize the futility of its actions, giving up as Ranma held it restrained. He took the head in hand, but he hesitated. It was one thing to take an animal's life when it was injured and wouldn't survive anyway. That was an act of kindness. To kill for other reasons—for food, or in one's own defense—wasn't brutal or cruel, at least not in itself. As long as the man doing the killing took no pleasure, joy, or satisfaction in it, what was the harm?

Ranma frowned. What was the harm in eating granola bars for a night when he'd be at the Guide's house by the next day?

He set the bird down on the ground and snapped the string with his bare hands, and when the partridge looked at him curiously, he stomped on the ground to scare it off. "Shoo! Go on, get out of here!"

The bird took off—perhaps surprised that it could fly again—and never looked back, nor did Ranma.

#

Night on the Tibetan Plateau was frigid, but a well-stocked fire and sleeping bags helped mitigate the cold. What didn't help was Kunō sidling up to Ranma in the middle of the night, claiming they could share body heat.

When daylight broke the next morning, it came through a heavy blanket of clouds, and Ranma scrambled to pack up their camp and hit the road with Kunō lagging behind, but for all Ranma's haste, the weather was faster. As the Plateau turned from desolate, rocky wastes to thickening forest—a byproduct of the springs' ample water supply, no doubt—Ranma donned raingear for the rest of the hike. Rainwater beaded on his clear poncho and fell away, leaving him unbothered, but behind Ranma, Kunō struggled.

"Forgive me," said Kunō, breathing heavily as he fumbled over the poncho's folds. "I am usually brilliant, but this contraption seems oddly puzzling. I must not be thinking clearly right now."

_Try 'most of the time,'_ Ranma thought to himself, but even for Kunō, this was unusual. Perhaps the hike and the thin air had taken too much of a toll on the boy. It would be better for him to rest. Besides, Ranma didn't want to have to deal with Kunō wandering about Jusenkyō in search of his missing pigtailed girl.

So Ranma fished though his pack, finding a pair of cookies. "Here, Sempai!" he cried in the most chipper, feminine voice he could muster. "Eat these; they'll restore your strength!"

"Why thank you, pigtailed girl. I shall savor every bite." Munch. "They are delicious, but nowhere near as delectable as your pure…your pure…" Kunō wobbled, going unsteady on his feet, and Ranma caught him by the arm, easing him down to sit dazed by a tree trunk.

"I might've forgotten to mention your sister made them for us," Ranma explained. "You don't think she laced them with something, do you?"

Sure enough, Kunō slumped over, falling asleep, and that was for the best anyway. Gods only knew that if Kunō got any closer to the springs, he might fall into some nasty pool, like the Spring of Drowned Wannabe Samurai with Delusions of Awesome.

_Kunō's already all of those things, though, and he's not that dangerous. Just annoying._

For good measure, Ranma tied Kunō to that tree. Only then did he feel safe entering the spring ground. To protect himself from the rain, he pulled tightly on the hood of his clear poncho, but the thin material could do only so much to keep the water out of his face. If it was already raining that hard, the springs couldn't hold out much longer. Hopefully the Guide had heard his message asking him to prepare a cask. That way, he wouldn't be at the mercy of the weather, of waiting for the springs to finish flooding and go down again.

When Ranma set eyes on the Guide's shack, however, his hopes were dashed. A whole corner of the shack had been lopped off, as if it were a block of tofu for an angry chef to cut and shape at his prerogative.

Slowing his steps, Ranma approached. He peered into the remaining, open shell of the shack and called out. "Hello? Anybody home still?"

Weakly, a voice answered him. It came from behind a white icebox—one that had become stained from dripping water that came in freely through the roof. The voice was soft and quiet, difficult to hear above the rain. "Honored Guest?"

Ranma tip-toed over soggy scraps of paper and parchment. He crept around the icebox, and there he found Plum. The young girl shivered, having wrapped herself in some dusty bedsheets for warmth, but nothing could keep the rain totally at bay. Water pooled in spots on the floor, hemming the girl into an uncomfortably small space to stay dry.

"What the hell happened here? Where's your old man, Plum? He didn't just leave you here, did he?"

She shook her head slowly, stuck in a lethargic daze. "Very tragic story, Honored Guest," she said. "They took him. People came for him, and they took him."

So that's why the Guide didn't answer. Someone had come after him, someone who—judging by the damage where his desk had been—had smashed the Guide's phone into pieces.

"Who did this, Plum?" demanded Ranma. "Those Phoenix bastards again? I thought they didn't need anything else from Jusenkyō!"

"Not Phoenix," she said, shaking her head. "It said they were called Sorcerers."

"Sorcerers? There are more crazy people in this area?"

"I read about them in Daddy's book." Shedding her layers, Plum crawled over the floor. She fetched a thick, dusty book with yellowed pages and dragged it back to the icebox. Her stomach growled, but Plum flipped the pages of the book, oblivious to the sound.

"Hey, when's the last time you ate?"

"Yesterday. There was a bag of berries Daddy had picked. He left them in the icebox; I wanted to eat them before all the ice ran out."

"How big a bag?"

Plum put her hands together, forming a small cup. "About that much."

"All day? Plum, when did these guys come for your old man?"

"Yesterday, right at dawn, when you called."

"That was a day and a half ago! Why didn't you go get help?"

"I knew you were coming," she said groggily. "I just had to stay here and wait."

Little wonder she was so zoned out. She'd used up all her strength to hold out for him, to stay alive.

Ranma undid the cap of his canteen and put it to Plum's lips. "Here, drink first; then you can have whatever food's in my pack. There are some dry clothes in there, too, but I doubt any of it will fit. Eat what you can, but not too fast, and don't touch the cookies. They're bad."

Wiping her mouth from the canteen, Plum looked at him strangely. "Cookies can go bad?"

"When they're poisoned, yeah. You don't want to know, trust me." Ranma leaned over the thick, dusty book. The open page showed men in lightweight cloth armor wielding staves. Ranma figured they must've been the culprits. "Now what's this about Sorcerers?"

Plum turned the book around for Ranma to read. "I don't understand some of the really complicated characters, but I think it says the Sorcerers were one of the major tribes of the Province until twenty years ago, when their village just disappeared."

Ranma squinted. Chinese and Japanese shared some common ideograms, but staring at the page in front of him made his eyes cross. "Sorry, I really don't read Chinese. Just bottom line it for me; if their village disappeared, how are we going to find them and get your old man back?"

"Oh, we don't have to go all that way," said Plum. "They're still here; come and see." She rose to her feet, wobbling for a moment as the blood rushed from her head, but she tugged at Ranma's pant leg, leading him back to the door and the rain. "Look past the trees. Smoke's coming up; they're still here, with my father."

Rummaging through his pack, Ranma retrieved a pair of binoculars to look into the distance. Sure enough, there was a thin column of smoke rising against the background of clouds, but it was subtle and difficult to discern. Much easier to see was the intense rain. Stray droplets splattered on the lenses of the binoculars, quickly rendering them useless. With just his own unaided eyes, Ranma watched the springs fill with rainwater. In minutes, the springs could begin to flood.

"Listen, Plum," he began, "have you been to this camp of theirs? Did you see that your old man is still there or not?"

"I didn't want to get too close," she said. "They might do to me whatever they wanted to do with him. They can use strong magic, Honored Guest. Their leader was ten steps out the door when she heard the telephone ring. She just swiped with her stick, and everything between her and the shack blew apart! She didn't even have to touch it!"

"That's not that impressive," said Ranma, "and look—I want to get the Guide back for you, really, but I can do that a lot better as a man, not like this. Do you have a map of the springs still? I need to find the Spring of Drowned Man before everything goes to soup."

Plum gaped at him, appalled. "Honored Guest, what are you saying? You want to go cure yourself before you save my father?"

"You don't even know he's still there! I can fight at least ten times better when I'm a man, and how long will this take—two minutes, tops? This is what I came here to do; I'm not leaving empty-handed."

"But this is my father!" cried Plum. "Those people could be torturing him or hurting him or doing something else to him even right this second!"

Ranma balled his hand into a fist. Really, of all the things he'd faced to get his cure, the thing that was stopping him most right then was a little girl trying to give him a guilt trip? He'd pretended to be a girl for Kunō, the most chivalrous lecher within ten thousand miles! The humiliation of having Kunō stare at Ranma's female body was stomach-churning, but he'd endured it. So what if Plum wanted to act like a spoiled child. He's crossed a whole ocean and countless mountains to get his cure!

"Look, Plum," he said, "me taking the time to go skinny-dipping for a second isn't going to make a bit of difference! Either the Guide is still alive and they aren't going to hurt him any more than they already have, or he's gone and there's nothing to be done about it anyway!"

Plum's eyes went wide. Her mouth hung open, and her whole body began to shake. "Daddy's gone?" she mumbled. "Daddy could be gone…."

_Oh hell._ "Now wait a minute," said Ranma, "that's not what I meant! I'm sure he's fine; he's fine!"

But Plum bawled her eyes out. Sobbing, she clung to Ranma's leg, and her tears soaked into the fabric of his pants. Ranma stared out the door with a sigh. The springs were awash with ripples and chaotic waves as the rain fell, but so far, they hadn't flooded. They were safe at that moment, but they may as well have been a single mess of mixed curse water. With that innocent little girl stuck to him, there was no way he could go looking for the Spring of Drowned Man. To even try would've been pointlessly cruel.

So he patted Plum's head, saying nothing, for he could find nothing worthwhile to say to a sobbing little girl.

_Damn,_ he thought. _Why is it I have a handful of girls after me, anyway? How is that possible when I'm this much of a bastard—enough to make a little girl cry?_

There was always something keeping him from his cure, it seemed, but what was he to do? The springs would still be there the next day. He'd already spent months living with his curse. What was a few more hours? Soon enough he'd be a man again. Until then, he'd deal with being stuck in that girl's body as a man incomplete.

"Okay, Plum," he said to her. "If your old man is still there, I'll go get him back. That's a promise, understand? You stay right here. Hide out; don't make a sound."

Nodding, Plum released him, and Ranma ventured out, into the rain—a thickening, impenetrable downpour—with only the thin material of his poncho to keep out the wet and cold.

And as he headed back to the forest, the springs of Jusenkyō flooded over.

#

What Ranma had promised Plum was not without danger. To approach an unknown foe—or several of them—was the deed of a reckless man. Ranma could be reckless, of course, but knowing that his actions might put the Guide in danger, Ranma exercised caution. He headed into the nearby trees and worked his way around the springs, preferring not to stay in that clear area for too long. The rain was deafening; the splashing of droplets on his poncho sounded like marbles dropping on a tin roof. Even if no one else could've heard it, Ranma considered ditching the poncho and dealing with the rain all by himself. After all, it was loose and thin. It would give any enemies he faced an easy way to grab him and disturb his balance or momentum, but Ranma thought better of it. Dealing with sopping wet clothes or the bone-chilling cold would be much poorer alternatives. The best he could think to do was to fight with what he'd been given, what he had on him. He didn't need weapons. Just his own two hands would do.

And as much as Ranma had wanted to get his cure and go back home, there was something strangely refreshing about the idea of going into a fight. When a man trades blows with another, the battle lines are clearly drawn. It's just you versus your opponent. Nothing could be simpler than that. There are no entanglements, and it can only end one way: with either you or him on the floor.

Certainly that was a lot easier for Ranma to understand than being trapped between two girls as one of them wept and another stared at him in disappointment and anger. It was only just beginning to rain at that moment, too…

He pushed the memory out of his mind. He had promises to keep, one to Plum and her father included. With an arm held high to shield his face from the rain, Ranma slogged through the woods around Jusenkyō, searching for a faint trail of smoke amid darkening skies and a torrential downpour. Though his eyes were keen, Ranma never spotted that faint smoke trail again.

He found a dry bubble—a pocket of clear air—instead.

_The hell is this?_

The bubble had no well-defined surface, but raindrops turned away from it all on their own. Ranma extended his fingers into the bubble, and he felt a light pressure trying to keep him out. The bubble extended upward, well beyond Ranma's short stature as a girl. It was big enough and wide enough that Ranma could only guess where the center was—somewhere deeper in the woods, to be sure, but where exactly…?

He stepped into the bubble, through a sheet of deflected raindrops, and left the clattering of the downpour behind. If these people who'd taken the guide were really 'Sorcerers' of some kind, then this dry bubble could only be their doing. It struck Ranma as massively inefficient—why would anyone waste precious magic points on such a spell when a simple animal hide tent would protect them just as well? Unless it were cheap, permanent, and easy to perform, of course. If that bubble were an easy feat for them, they just might put up a decent fight.

Going deeper into the bubble, Ranma slowed his steps, moving carefully. The clamor of the rain had faded to a distant roar, and even one broken twig could give Ranma away. He knew well how to move silently, though, and how to keep his presence undetectable to even the most attentive martial artists. That much he'd learned from his father's stealthy thieving art, and while he'd vowed to seal those techniques away, the basic principles of bottling one's aura to stay hidden were too useful to totally discard.

With a methodical search, heading further and further toward where he thought the center would be, Ranma glimpsed the flickering embers of a fire. He hid behind a tree trunk and turned just one eye to the campsite. The Guide sat by the fire, his wrists and ankles bound with rope. Across from him, two of the Sorcerers meditated, sitting quietly with their staves laid out by their sides. The other two Sorcerers stood by the Guide. One of them—a girl just taller than Ranma with long, reddish-brown hair—spoke with her prisoner in Chinese, and when he didn't give her the responses she wanted, she motioned to her companion, who obligingly stuck the blunt tip of his staff into the Guide's gut, adding a spark of lightning for good measure.

The Guide gave a sickening groan. He was beaten and bruised—that much Ranma could see. Just the way he breathed—in big, exaggerated gasps—showed he was laboring for air.

_They might've broken a couple of his ribs or punctured a lung. Man, what would you want the Guide for? He just works here, so why take him? Or is that the thing that all the tribes around here just like to do? People back home like to go shopping or see a movie on a weekend afternoon. I guess around here, abducting someone from a cursed spring ground is just as entertaining!_

As the Sorcerers tortured the Guide further—alternating between physical blows and blinding electrical shocks that drew unnatural, high-pitched cries—Ranma studied the situation. Facing all four of these Sorcerers at once was an unappealing prospect. He looked around for some subtle way to cause a distraction, to encourage the Sorcerers to split up. Perhaps he could throw a rock, but he spotted nothing of any size. He could dig through the ground looking for a boulder, but that would attract attention when he wasn't ready for it, and if the only option was to attract attention…

Well, there was no point in being subtle then. Ranma turned to the tree he'd been hiding behind. He balled his fist, cocked his arm back, and punched!

CRUNCH! The wood sheared and splintered. Two of the Sorcerers leveled their staves. The tree creaked and rocked, and Ranma gave it a thundering kick!

Creak-creak-creak! The trunk tilted toward the Sorcerer encampment. The meditating Sorcerers took to their feet, grabbed their staves, and jumped away!

CRASH! The ground rumbled; the tree trunk landed on the campfire, extinguishing the flames, and the incessant deluge penetrated the camp, falling with its intolerable clatter. With the two Sorcerers who'd meditated to maintain the spell having to move, nothing could keep the rain out any longer.

And that was just as well for Ranma—more noise and distraction could only help him as he made his getaway.

"Sorry!" he shouted toward the camp. "Thought this was a logging area. Might've forgotten to say _timber_ there. You guys didn't get hurt, did you? Because if you did, that makes my job easier."

The girl with the long, reddish-brown hair reached out with her left hand, and the trees around Ranma glowed brightly with a golden hue.

_Oh, that looks bad._

The girl closed her fist, and—

BANG-BANG-BANG! The trees exploded like mortar shells, blasting wooden shrapnel in every direction. Splinters and branches bombarded Ranma, and he shielded his face to keep the small pieces out of his eyes.

_All right, time to go!_

And go he did before more of the trees could erupt around him. He ran back, toward the springs, and the Sorcerers followed—two men gave chase. It was just as he'd hoped; if they'd been smart, they would've stayed put at their camp and made Ranma come to them. Instead, he drew them further and further from help, chipping away at the advantage they had in numbers, but the Sorcerers didn't make his flight from them easy. Bolts of lightning nipped at Ranma's heels, charring the ground behind him and ringing his ears. The bolts were so close, he felt the heat from each strike on his back, and to add to the chaos, an invisible force uprooted the trees around him and threw the trunks, as if they were as light as ping-pong balls.

_Oh, sure, just keep hurling everything in the world at me; it doesn't matter. I've got a plan._

A car-sized boulder rose from the ground and flung itself at Ranma, smashing him into the earth. Dirt and mud went up his nose and into his mouth.

_Well, I kind of had a plan._

Ranma crawled free of the boulder, thankful that he lived in a world where being smashed by one-ton rock was only a minor inconvenience, at least for a martial artist like him. Seeing his pursuers closing, Ranma kicked at the boulder, sending it flying back at the Sorcerers.

CRASH!

But they jumped and flew out of the way, hurtling upward into the soupy gray sky. The boulder rolled beneath them out of sight.

_Flying with magic? Oh, come on! At least that Phoenix prick had wings to tear off and make me _feel _better!_

The barrage of lightning strikes and thrown debris continued unabated, however, so Ranma had no time to complain about the unfairness of the Sorcerers' advantage. He moved to negate it instead. He scrambled to his feet and jumped, landing on a low-hanging branch of a nearby tree, but he didn't stay there for long.

CRACK! A lightning bolt struck, turning the tree he'd left to flames. Ranma hopped from tree to tree, gaining height with each jump and escaping the last with just enough time before the trees snapped themselves in two or electricity sheared off the branches he'd set upon. He searched the dark gray skies, looking for even a trace of his enemies—the flutter of black cloth in the wind, for example…

Or the glint of a metal staff tip as lightning lit up everything in the area. Ranma saw this brief sparkle, and he pushed off the treetop, catching the Sorcerer in mid-air and slamming him to the ground.

WHAM!

That was where martial arts theory and training could differ from reality. There was nothing civil and disciplined about being crouched over an enemy in a muddy crater, about bashing his face in with a flurry of punches, but that's what Ranma did, without regret, pity, or remorse. He drew blood from the Sorcerer's nose, and the sleeves of his clear poncho ran with a variety of colors—brown from the earth, green from short grasses, and red from blood. Though the rain ate away at these stains over time, nothing could fully erase them—not from Ranma's mind.

The man was dazed and delirious. He made a weak moaning sound, like a crippled animal, but Ranma kept slugging him. "Be quiet!" he cried. "You don't get to speak, hear me? All I came here to do was get some water and cure my curse, but no!"

Bam! Ranma punched him across the cheek, turning the Sorcerer's head at an unnatural angle.

"You guys had to show up and make trouble! I don't even know who you are!"

Crunch! He hit the Sorcerer on the nose, and there was a loud _pop_ of broken cartilage.

"I'm going home, and she's going to see I _am_ a man, dammit! I am!"

THUD! A sharp stone flew off the ground and struck Ranma in the side with the speed of a bullet.

Ranma staggered, coming to a defensive pose as he recovered. His foe was already beaten into finely-pressed wood pulp; that phantom moving rock was nothing he could've done.

Ranma looked around and spotted the culprit: the second Sorcerer stood in plain sight, straight and tall, unprepared for physical combat, yet with just a slight movement of his eyes, the stone shot at Ranma again, nailing him in the back. Ranma turned to face the object and defend himself, but the stone rebounded away, like a yo-yo catching on its string.

_Right, there's nothing to be done to fend off a swarm of angry rocks._ Ranma turned back to the Sorcerer and charged!

Thud, thud! Stones bombarded him from all sides, smashing at his ribs, his knees, and his ankles. Ranma lost his footing, slipping in the muddy ground, but when he couldn't walk on two feet, he bounded after the Sorcerer on all fours like a panther after its prey.

Rocks and logs zipped by Ranma's head, unable to keep pace with him. The Sorcerer's eyes bulged in fright, and his magic shoved a mountain of dirt in Ranma's way. Ranma shut his eyes, hurtled through the wall of earth, and kicked blindly, not knowing if his foot would connect.

Thu-WHAM!

Soiled and dirty, Ranma came up on his own two feet, finding the Sorcerer's body embedded halfway into a nearby tree trunk.

_That's two._

In the pouring rain, Ranma headed back toward the Sorcerer encampment, and this time, he ran quickly, unconcerned with stealth or silence. The last embers of the campfire had faded, snuffed out by the fallen tree and a growing puddle of water. The Sorcerers had packed up their equipment into plain brown rucksacks hung over their shoulders with waxy cords. The girl with the reddish-brown hair pulled the Guide up by his ropes, freed his feet, and walked him along with his hands still bound.

But where was the other Sorcerer? Ranma looked all around for the fourth, not knowing if to expect more lightning or a telepathic mudslinger or some other bizarre magic, but when the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, Ranma dove for safety.

PAM! The earth erupted; a Sorcerer smashed his staff into the ground, displacing the soil with the force of a landmine.

TCH-CHEW! A golden beam of energy shot out, grazing Ranma on the arm and disappearing as fast as it had arrived. The wound stung, feeling warm like a burn. Ranma looked back to the source—the girl with the reddish-brown hair, who tugged on the Guide's rope to lead him away.

Ranma dashed in after them, coming after the girl, but a golden barrier rose between him and her, protection the girl in a shimmering sphere. She yanked the Guide back behind her, and Ranma punched and punched against the gold shield. His blows bounced off harmlessly, but with each strike, he forced the girl back, one step at a time. He stayed with her, waiting, while he watched for the girl's partner to dash in. When he glimpsed a staff twirling from the corner of his eye, he darted away, and—

WHAM! The shockwave from the staff's impact reflected off the girl's golden shield, knocking the attacking Sorcerer back.

"What a bitch!" said Ranma, stifling a grin. "You just stood there while your guy came in; you totally stuck him on his ass! I guess he's not completely out of the fight right now, though."

Ranma broke off part of the fallen tree's trunk and, when the girl tried to shield herself, he smashed the third Sorcerer into the ground instead.

"Well then." Ranma wiped his hands clean in the rainwater. "I guess now he is."

The girl glared daggers at him, still protecting herself behind the golden shield. She kept one hand on her staff and the other holding the Guide's tethering rope. She didn't seem keen on backing down, and while Ranma thought he'd walk all over her as long as she insisted on keeping the Guide near, a bystander's presence could work against him, too. He'd promised Plum he'd rescue her father. A fight with him so close, beat up and bruised so he could barely limp to walk, could end very badly.

The Sorcerer under the shattered tree trunk groaned, and the girl behind the golden shield took her eyes off Ranma to look. That's when Ranma made his decision—the best decision for everyone involved.

"I don't like fighting girls, but if you're going to stand there looking angry, I can rough you up as well I have the rest of your goons," said Ranma. "Give me your prisoner, and you can go tend to your people. Guide, tell her that. Even if she can't understand everything you say, a little is enough."

The Guide nodded, relating Ranma's offer in a hoarse, weak voice to the girl with the reddish-brown hair. The girl didn't look at the Guide; she watched Ranma the whole time, and her eyes only narrowed as he finished translating Ranma's words.

"If she doesn't agree, then she can get a few bones broken fighting with me," said Ranma. "Tell her to look at her people. I did to this guy what I did to the other two that she sent after me. They're all weak—physically weak and squishy like Saffron was."

The girl's eyes flashed.

"For all their mighty magic," Ranma went on, "they can't take a direct hit. I bet this girl's the same. You tell her that."

It was a calculated risk—showing bravado when he himself didn't want a fight. If there was one thing Ranma knew how to do, it was how to goad an opponent, how to needle him incessantly with insults and snide remarks until he lost his cool, but this was a different matter entirely: he had to provoke an opponent into _not_ fighting?

But the girl obliged him seemingly without argument. Before the Guide was even a quarter of the way through his translation, the girl had released his rope.

_Wait—how could she know that's what I wanted? Did she understand me?_

If she did, she didn't say anything to prove it. She kept up her protective shell and circled around Ranma to her fallen comrade, freeing him from the tree trunk and checking for signs of life.

"Now's our chance." Ranma went to the Guide and tore the rest of the rope bindings with his bare hands, freeing the Guide's wrists. "How fast can you walk?"

"Not fast," said the Guide.

Ranma took one of the Guide's arms, trying to support him despite being over a foot shorter in his girl body. "Then this'll have to do," said Ranma, watching the girl with the long hair. "She'll be back for you if we don't get out of here soon enough."

"Why…?" The Guide breathed heavily, every step forcing exertion from him. "Why you think that?"

Because the girl with the golden magic barrier met Ranma's gaze, following him and the Guide with her eyes until they were too far through the trees to watch anymore.

#

With the Guide struggling to walk, Ranma knew they wouldn't get far. That was probably what the girl was counting on. She'd see if any of her people were still battle-worthy and then come back with renewed force, knowing that Ranma was a threat. Though Ranma had come out of his scrape with the Sorcerers fairly well, he wasn't exactly unscathed. His sides ached with bruises. His poncho had torn, exposing him to the rain, and his knuckles ached from the blows he'd delivered to the first Sorcerer. All in all, it was not what he'd had in mind when he'd set out for China.

_It had to be magic Sorcerers. Why couldn't it be something easy like, I dunno, Martial Arts Mahjong players? I could've handled people being overly dramatic when they put down tiles. Being out here in the freezing rain, fighting again for life and limb…_

He shook off the thought. Everything he'd done there was the result of a promise he'd made or a goal he'd set for himself. At least no one could accuse him of doing the unmanly thing, of not following through on what he'd set out to do. It might even make for a good story once he claimed his cure and made his way back home, if there were someone who'd be willing to hear it and someone he'd want to tell it to.

But first things were first. Ranma had to get the Guide out of there, away from Jusenkyō. The girl and her companions would likely come searching, and the more of them who could move about and walk, the less time Ranma and the Guide would have. They'd start with the Guide's shack, Ranma reasoned, so the first thing to do was go back, retrieve Plum, and get as far away as possible. When he and the Guide came within shouting distance of the shack, Ranma called out to Plum, and she came running out with little more than a plastic bag over her head to keep her dry.

"Daddy, Daddy, you're alive!" she cried, hugging her father's leg tightly. "Honored Guest, thank you! I knew you'd come through!"

"Don't get too excited," said Ranma. "Those goons are still out there; we have to move. I've got a camp just a little ways from here, so let's get going. We ain't safe yet, and you'd be a fool to think otherwise."

"Honored Guest quite right, but if you not come back to springs, I'd still be in their hands." The Guide limped along, prying Plum free from his injured leg. "What good fortune that you come back."

Ranma looked away. "I dunno if fortune had anything to do with it. In fact, I'm pretty sure it didn't do anything at all."

"Fortune that you broke the castk," the Guide insisted. "That's why you come, no?"

Ranma eyed the mountain, whose peak was obscured behind cloud cover. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"Forgive me," said the Guide, "but I ask because they were curious."

"Who? Those Sorcerers?"

"Yes. They ask about the person who dealt with Saffron. They wanted to know what happened three weeks ago, if there had been some kind of event or battle here." The Guide touched a hand to his temple, straining. "Yes, very specific about date. Twenty-three days ago now, I think. The day you killed—"

"I don't want to talk about that, either," said Ranma. "We all know what happened then. Just why are they asking about me? You didn't tell them anything, did you? Did you tell them who I am? Did you tell them my name?"

"No, no, not a word," the Guide promised him. "That why they beat and shock me. I mistake them for friends of Phoenix Tribe, so I no answer."

Ranma nodded at that, saying nothing, for already his mind had begun to race. It was in the shadow of Mount Kensei that he'd fought before, just as the Guide had said, and yes, he'd killed a man to save a life. So what if he'd taken pleasure in doing it, if he'd felt relief and joy in the moments after? That was one moment in time, a moment he could've put behind him and forgotten had he not needed to return to China.

And he'd almost lived that moment over again as he'd bashed in that Sorcerer's face with his bare hands.

By way of a softening trail, Ranma led the Guide and his daughter Plum away from the spring ground, and it wasn't far to the spot where Ranma had left Kunō tied to a tree. The poor, deluded man greeted his cherished pigtailed girl with delight.

"My darling! At last, you return for me! Oh, what a terrible mistake it was, believing my sister would pack us a genuine token of goodwill!"

Ranma rolled his eyes. "I dunno who you're talking about, but I'm not the one who made any kind of mistake."

"But surely you gave me that poisoned biscuit not knowing how tainted it was?"

The Guide eyed Kunō strangely. "Honored Guest, this man not know who you are?"

"Nope," said Ranma, taking a knife to Kunō's ropes. "Monopoly Man here has an excellent echo chamber inside his skull, if you know what I mean."

"Ah, yes of course!" cried Kunō. "I've been told I have well-shaped sinus cavities that give my voice a pleasant timbre. Perhaps I should recite some poetry for you?"

With an exaggerated sigh, Ranma slapped his palm on his forehead. There was no other way to get the idiot to shut up, so Ranma cleared his throat. "Sempai, there are bad bad men after the friendly guide here! You should _stop talking_ so they don't hear you!"

Kunō blinked. "But you're still talking."

_Now you decide to be smart?_ "That's because my voice is so high they can't hear it! Hehe."

"I see. Then, in defense of this honorable guide, I, Kunō Tatewaki, shall help escort him to safety!"

Ranma pressed a finger to his lips, hissing.

"…silently," Kunō added with a whisper.

With one annoyance taken care of, Ranma slowed to the back of the group, and in a low voice, he spoke only to the Guide and Plum. "We'll go back to Yushu and hang out for a couple days. Hopefully, those Sorcerer freaks will have cleared out by then."

"And if not?" asked the Guide.

"Well, that'll just be inconvenient for you; either way, I'm getting what I came here for. I'm not going home like this." Ranma squeezed one of the mounds of fatty flesh on his chest. "If they're still here, then it'll just be a fight for it. That doesn't scare me."

"If Honored Guest can lead us back to town at all," said the Guide, struggling to keep pace despite support from Ranma. "I walk slow; night will come before we reach Yushu halfway."

Ranma knew that well. Though each step put more distance between the group and Jusenkyō, those steps were too slow and small to be enough. The girl whom Ranma had left behind would find them—Ranma expected that much, and when his skin began to tingle and a disturbance sped over the treetops, he was prepared. There was only one course of action to take to protect the Guide whom these Sorcerers were after and for Ranma to claim the cure he'd been so long without.

"Kunō," he said, "take the Guide and Plum to town. I'll catch up with you later."

"Not a chance, pigtailed girl! I couldn't possibly leave you here!"

Forcing a tense smile to his face, Ranma pleaded with Kunō in the sweetest voice he could muster. "But Sempai, it will be so amazing when you lead these nice, innocent people to safety! I'll stitch your name into my panties and everything!"

Kunō's eyes went wide. "Into your pa-pa-pa-panties? But, you mustn't say such things, pigtailed girl! I cannot abandon you; I—"

Ranma touched Kunō's chest, and the upperclassman went as red as a beet.

"Pigtailed girl?"

Those small, feminine hands clenched Kunō's clothes like a vice. Ranma spun, flinging Kunō about like a child swings a weight on a string. "Why don't you just do what you're told for once, moron?"

That was the last Kunō heard of his darling pigtailed girl that day, for Ranma hurled him on a low arc through the woods, and Kunō landed somewhere out of sight with a satisfying thud, rustling in the brush.

And it wasn't a moment too soon to get rid of Kunō, for the disturbance in the treetops landed before Ranma and the Guide with a rippling wave that cut through the rain. The girl with the reddish-brown hair stood straight and upright with her staff in hand and her stare fixed solely on Ranma.

"Go on now, Guide, Plum," said Ranma. "I'll handle this."

The Guide took a fallen tree branch and used it as a walking stick to help him limp away from the scene, and Plum followed closely at his heels. Ranma circled around to put Plum and the Guide at his back. He made himself the obstacle for the Sorcerer girl to go through.

"Well?" Ranma called out to her. "What do you have to say for yourself now? The Guide's getting away, and you're all alone. Maybe you should just give up. Go back home and practice card tricks. I hear that kind of magic really surprises people."

The girl with reddish-brown hair raised her free hand, and the golden, spherical barrier took shape around her, shimmering as raindrops touched it. She said nothing in response to Ranma's jives. Her stony expression had hardly changed at all.

"All business, huh?" said Ranma. "Suits me fine, then. Let's go!"

He charged at her with fists and feet in a flurry, assaulting the golden barrier with a barrage of punches and kicks. Each blow pushed the girl back—sometimes as much as a few inches, sometimes less—but the barrier held.

_You can hide behind that wall all day if you want, but you're the one coming after me. Sooner or later, you have to attack. That's when I'll get to you. It's just a matter of time before you drop that barrier to do it._

The golden shield flattened and grew. With both hands, the Sorcerer girl shaped it from a distance, forming an impenetrable bubble as tall as three men.

_Oh, come on. Are you serious?_

And then she pushed.

CRUNCH, BANG, SMASH! The barrier expanded, pushing Ranma back like a tidal wave breaking on a beach, except the surf he rode in was a rough mixture of broken trees, dirt, and rock. The golden wall dissipated quickly, and Ranma tumbled through the mess of debris like a ragdoll—a soiled, scratched, and pummeled doll at that.

_All right, _maybe _you can put up a fight after all!_

Ranma sprang to his feet, eyes open, searching for his foe, but he didn't have to look for very long. A shimmering beam connected them, glowing and persistent. It was like a tether from his chest to the girl's open hand, and from that, Ranma felt a tugging sensation—a weakening of his own aura that strengthened his opponent instead.

"So what, you don't need a hollow coin to suck the fighting spirit from me?" Ranma called out to her. "Does that actually make you grow breasts, or do you stay as flat as you are right now?"

TCH-CHEW! A beam of golden energy passed through his body, carrying with it no momentum, no force, but Ranma's chest burned with heat, as if someone had placed a Bunsen burner in his lungs. A tree behind him exploded in flames, and Ranma took to a knee, trying to catch his breath.

_Damn you're sneaky!_

But Ranma didn't dwell on the pain. He'd known worse. There was a reason he was in China, and no puny tribal Sorcerer girl was going to get in his way. She faced him there, in the woods around Jusenkyō, and though Ranma had reeled from her knockback attack and her penetrating beam, not once had she even moved a step toward the path—the trail that the Guide, Plum, and Kunō were retreating on. Either she or Ranma would be the victor, and only once that was settled would the matter of Ranma's cure or her questions for the Guide be dealt with.

_Fine by me. Let's finish this, then!_

He charged her again, but this time, he was ready for her tricks. When she meant to push him away with her expanding barrier, he retreated on his own and circled around to get back at her. He feinted with a kick at her legs, and that distracted her long enough to weaken her barrier up high. A right hook of Ranma's connected, drawing blood from her nose, and her wooden staff clattered on the ground.

"Don't worry," said Ranma. "The blood doesn't really ruin your looks. You weren't that pretty to begin with."

The staff flew through the air on its own, back into the girl's hands, and at last, her stoic expression gave way to a definite scowl.

"What, you do understand me?" Ranma pressed. "Then you should know I'm just getting warmed up. Come on! What are you waiting for?"

The combatants charged each other, and that time, the Sorcerer girl didn't hide behind her magic barrier. She imbued her staff with energy, giving it a radiant glow, and each swing and thrust of the weapon sparked magic through the air. Ranma bore the brunt of these painful jolts, but pain was in the mind, and burns would soon go through the skin to leave desensitized nerves that felt nothing. Ranma didn't try to keep up with her strikes, though. She was fast—unnaturally fast. She dodged the bulk of his attacks like she'd seen them on film the night before and had worked out the choreography to avoid them, so Ranma didn't waste his time. He focused on his footwork, on keeping cool despite the heat and warmth that coursed through him every time the Sorcerer girl landed a blow. He let her run rings around him, for that was all part of his plan. The girl had expended much hot, energetic ki into the air. It was the stuff that made her magic blows painful, and Ranma knew well how to turn an opponent's energies against her. He led the girl in a circle as the air crackled with her golden ki magic, and with a single upward punch—

CRACK!

He spawned a tornado unlike anything he'd ever seen or created. Bolts of golden ki shot from it, zapping the Sorcerer girl as she rose upward, ever higher, unable to break free of the wind.

Ranma took to a knee, panting, and admired his work. He would have to think of a name for that maneuver. Flying Dragon's Ascent Storm, perhaps? That would have to do. His body ached; his skin was tender and red in places, and even the cold rain falling from the sky did little to soothe his burns.

When he heard a pronounced thud at a small distance, Ranma trudged through the dissipating tornado, hoping to find his opponent beaten and broken, but it wasn't Sorcerer girl climbed to her feet, using her staff as a support. Her hair was frazzled and dripping. She staggered with her steps, but she looked him in the eye, her gaze hard and unwavering.

_Not over yet? All right; bring it on!_

She waved a hand over the ground, and the earth itself began to glow and shimmer. Ranma took to a foot to jump, but—

TCHEW-TCHEW-TCHEW! The soil exploded with pulsing, penetrating heat, and he fell. He fell into a dark chasm that opened beneath him, and rock and mud piled on top. He clawed and kicked at the pit, but soil filled it in faster than he could dig himself out. The gray sky disappeared, going dark behind the mud, and with each moment, Ranma felt a terrible crushing weight that grew and pushed against him, trying to force him further down. He was like an ant drowning in molasses, and the more he struggled, the more he realized he had nowhere to go. There was no air down there, no way to see or know which way was up. There was only darkness, cold, earth, and water.

Water.

Water was his enemy, the reason he couldn't be a man all the time. How fitting it was that he would fail there, so close to the waters that'd cursed him, so close to the one spring that held his cure.

He would be defeated—he might even die—as a girl. Not as a man. He hadn't earned that dignity after all, so he closed his eyes to sleep—to sleep perchance to dream. To dream of places far away from that cold, dark hole. He wished for some place bright and warm, and he found that in his memories.

What he found in his mind was the swirling inferno over Mount Kensei as the flame-throwing bird-man sneered and taunted him. He felt the tiny doll stuffed into the neck of his shirt, her eyes drooping lower and lower with each passing second. Such a tumult of emotions he'd felt then: anxiety, knowing that he was losing time; rage at the bird-man who stood in his way despite all reason; and emptiness, for when he slew that monster and revived the doll, the girl he held there wouldn't breathe. For whole minutes, she'd lain naked and lifeless in his arms, and that drew tears from him. Even a man could cry over the dead, couldn't he?

But eventually, she came to, and they'd had a chance to get to know each other once again, to walk to school together like nothing had happened, yet Ranma focused on that emptiness, that moment when he thought all was lost. He opened the way for these melancholic thoughts to consume him, for if he died there under the earth, without even his cure to show for his trouble, he'd have just lost her again. These feelings cut at his heart; they hollowed him out into an empty shell, one that relived over and over a scene of abject helplessness until all that was left was a forlorn husk.

A husk that would be undamaged when the weight of his depression came crashing down in a ball of pink and purple light—the perfect Shishi Hōkōdan. The ball of ki blasted through the earth, leaving a crater with Ranma freed at the center. He wiped his face in the rain, and he breathed.

_Sorry, Ryōga—I just had to borrow that for a sec. Despair is your thing, not mine, but I have known it once or twice. I don't know how you can take doing that to yourself over and over, because that scares the shit out of me. Even just that one time, when I thought she was gone…_

He shook off the thought. He had no need of those feelings any longer, and if he could've banished them outright and made them something outside himself—like the image of the pigtailed girl he saw in mirrors—he would've done just that, but that didn't make the sentiment fake or unreal. Far from it: would the ball of ki come down at all if his feelings at that moment hadn't been real?

And for that depression and his drive to reclaim his manhood, he had just one person to thank.

_Kunō, Plum, Guide—you guys all asked me what I'm doing here. It's to make myself a man again, yeah, but I never told you who I wanted to prove it to. I didn't even want to admit it to myself. Akane, if you could see me now…_

He looked to the east, where Japan would be, but in the cloudy sky, he saw nothing different in that direction compared to any other. That thought he could finish when he'd earned his cure, when there wasn't a threat to him or the Guide any longer.

Ranma climbed to the edge of the crater, shading his eyes from the rain. Where was the Sorcerer girl? He looked around, spotting only her staff on the far side of the crater and a small indentation in the ground. He trotted over and saw more clearly what had happened: the Sorcerer girl had been buried, just like him, but through the force of the Shishi Hōkōdan. Only a hand remained above ground, and the fingers moved weakly, without direction or strength.

So it was. Ranma had won, and he could leave his opponent underground to die. It would be a fitting punishment after all the trouble she'd caused—not only for himself but for the Guide, too. That way, if the other Sorcerers knew what was good for them and didn't come back, Ranma would be free to claim his cure and go home once the spring waters receded and the pools were safe. He would be a man again. And if he walked away then and there, all it would cost was one more life. The Sorcerer girl was defeated, and she knew it.

Just like the partridge he'd held in his hands.

Ranma made it about ten steps from the crater before he stopped to ponder that thought. When he'd first killed a man, it was necessary. His enemy was dangerous and fiery and volatile; there was no coexistence with him, and Ranma took pleasure in punishing him for his arrogance and selfishness because of the person that man had wronged. One person—the same girl he was so eager to prove himself to. She'd helped him land that deathblow, but she wouldn't approve of this. That girl in the earth had kept him from his cure, kept him from going back home, but there were no more lives in danger. To leave her in the dirt to die would be ruthless and cold, and if he did it in someone else's name, that would be even worse.

So Ranma crouched in the crater, took the Sorcerer girl's hand, and pulled. His feet sank in the mud, but he yanked and tugged at the girl all the same. "Come on, dammit, you've got magic powers, don't you? Give me some traction here! Do something to help save your own pitiful life!"

The ground beneath him dried, in defiance of the rain falling all around Ranma, and only then did he find the strength to rip that girl from the clutches of the earth. They fell together into a heap on the surface of the crater. The girl was cut and scraped all over, and a bruise had started to develop over her left eye, which she could hardly keep open. She turned over, onto her back, and stared at Ranma questioningly.

"Do you understand me?" he asked. "Do you or don't you?"

The girl nodded once, saying nothing.

"Then you're welcome," he said. "Don't hesitate to thank me. You know, if you can speak."

The girl opened her mouth, and her voice came out hesitantly. "Thank you," she said in deliberate but precise Japanese.

Ranma huffed. It was little consolation. He was soaking wet despite his poncho, which bore traces of blood and dirt that the rain just wouldn't wash away. The springs were flooded, and both combatants suffered scratches and bruises from their battle. The Guide's shack was ashambles. All this destruction—what was it for?

This girl in front of him had asked the Guide about Saffron—about Saffron and the person who fought against him. Though she couldn't know it, that person was Ranma. He could leave her there, and she might never know, but the girl's look told him she would never stop hunting for him. As soon as she could stand on her own and walk, she would go looking for the Guide again, and after that, it would only be a matter of time before she heard about Ranma and what he'd done.

Ranma had already put curing his curse off for too long. To let another wound fester would be the height of arrogance and folly. He stood over the Sorcerer girl, looking down on her from above. "What is it you want? Why the hell did you come here?"

"To save ourselves," she said. "Saffron can help us. You know him, don't you?"

Ranma made a face, panicking. She couldn't know that. How could she? The Guide hadn't said anything to her!

_They're all weak,_ he'd said. _Weak and squishy like Saffron was!_

His heart sank. It wasn't the Guide. Uknowingly, Ranma had betrayed himself, and the Sorcerer girl's keen gaze all but confirmed it to be true.

"Me?" said Ranma, touching a finger to his chest. "No, I have no idea who you're talking about, not a clue—"

There was a sharp, stinging sensation on Ranma's thigh. He looked down, and he saw the girl had stuck him with a bamboo needle, and already, just standing there, he felt woozy on his feet.

"If that is true," the girl went on, "then meeting the Lady will only prove it so."

Ranma's strength left him, and he cursed himself out over helping that girl. He collapsed in the crater, rolling to the bottom, and as his vision darkened, he caught one last glimpse of the Sorcerer girl as she picked him up and draped him over her shoulder. So many questions he had—why they would want him after having questioned the Guide, for instance…

Or why, when he looked at the girl's fingers as she carried him, he spotted the bubbly residue of waterproof soap.

His mouth went numb; his eyes closed, and Ranma faded away into drug-induced sleep. Not knowing where the Sorcerer girl would carry him or how far away their destination would be, the last thing Ranma felt was the cold, incessant rain pouring down on his neck.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

As it says in the summary, this is a rewrite of _Identity_, but perhaps rewrite doesn't quite cover it, for though the spirit of the story is the same, the text—especially in this first chapter—is quite different. I hope that fans of the original will enjoy the rewrite's improvements while newcomers or those who previously dismissed this story will find something much more coherent and fluid, but as always, the burden is on me, the author, to make that come across, and it is my sincere hope not to let you, the reader, down.

The old version will still exist on the site, to show the mistakes in construction and ideas that were made, as well as the differences. I hope those of you who enjoyed the story before will find this reboot as refreshing as I do. With the journey underway once again, let the quest for Ranma's freedom begin anew.

-Muphrid  
November 4, 2012

For notes and commentary on this chapter and others, check out my blog at westofarcturus dot blogspot dot com


	2. The Village

**Part One: Ripples**. To claim his cure, Ranma must thwart a tribe of Chinese Sorcerers who have come to Jusenkyō, drawn to the spring ground for reasons of their own.

* * *

**The Village**

_Chapter Two_

Ranma opened his eyes to light and shadow, to shapes formless and unclear. Birds called to one another, singing their songs of mating. His vision came to focus on a wall of green and yellow straw, which enclosed a single room. Sunlight streamed through gaps in the fibers, casting streaks across an animal-skin rug. The rest of the floor was cold dirt.

Ranma picked himself up off the ground, his head pounding with pain. His tongue was dry, and he shied away from the light, averting his eyes. His body ached all over, as if he'd been in an all-day training session with his father to learn some arcane thieving technique—not that he'd ever tried something like that before.

All kidding himself aside, Ranma thought it best to check himself for injuries. Feeling a raw, tender sensation on his wrist, Ranma stuck his arm into the light, and the sun uncovered an area of pronounced irritation and redness.

_Rope burns,_ he thought.

He rubbed at his ankles, feeling more of the same. Those Sorcerers—they'd tied him to a stick like a pig to roast over a fire, except he was still alive. Somewhere in his drug-induced haze, Ranma remembered breaking free of his captors, snapping the ropes they'd used to bind him. He'd fled across a dry, flat stretch of arid plateau, but that hadn't gone over so well. When the Sorcerers had caught up to him, Ranma had fought as best he could, despite his addled mind, but with four against one, it was inevitable that one of his foes would stick him or scratch him with a bamboo needle.

Ranma felt his right thigh, and sure enough, the fabric was broken in two places over a pair of circular wounds.

_Guess they really must've wanted me to stay nice and quiet on the way here._

And just where exactly was he, anyway?

Ranma looked across the hut—a small, dark space only big enough for four or five men to sit in—to an opening in the straw. It was a doorway without a door, and the sunlight outside was so bright to Ranma's eyes that it blinded him. Still, he took to his feet, knocking over a clay bowl of kidney beans, and made for the doorway, squinting.

After a few moments, his vision adapted. Ranma found himself in a river valley—a pocket of fertility amid the harsh, inhospitable Tibetan Plateau. Between two mountainous ridges the river ran, and alongside it, a village had been built out of a smattering of huts and plots of farmland. Thick forests marked the borders of the settlement, all very typical and uninteresting, but one feature drew his attention. Far downriver, a dark spire loomed. Its height rivaled the two ridges on either side of the valley. It was an attention-grabbing landmark. For miles around, hikers and travelers must've noticed it.

_Not exactly big fans of subtlety, are we, Sorcerers. Wow, I'm really impressed by a big freaking tower._

Ranma looked around, seeing only unsuspecting villagers. A pair of farmers strolled by his hut with a cart of wheat and barley, but neither man drove the load. Instead, the cart rolled on its own, steering without a hand to guide it. The men eyed Ranma strangely, looking him up and down, but they said nothing. They hardly broke stride as they passed by.

Evidently, these Sorcerers weren't very bright, for they liked to build huge towers that would surely be spotted when they were _supposed_ to have disappeared. Ranma could think of few ways more ineffective at staying hidden than that, and as far as Ranma could see, he'd been left all alone. There were no guards; there was no one watching him unless, say, they could make themselves invisible. Even then, that wasn't a huge deterrent. Ranma scanned the edge of the valley, where the cleared land gave way to mountainous terrain and trees, and he spotted no guards at all.

_Of course there are no guards. That'd be impractical to put men every half-meter around the edge of the village._

And that meant there was no barrier to his escape.

He walked toward the edge of the village casually, without hurry or haste in his stride. There was no reason to attract undue attention. Granted, the bright red color of his shirt probably attracted more attention than he could handle, but that was nothing he could change right away. He would have plenty of other factors working against him: the Sorcerers could fly, after all, so Ranma had to admit they had an advantage in speed. That meant running for his life in the open wasn't a great option; the best thing to do was to try _not_ to run like a madman. Once he made it to the trees, the Sorcerers would have to search an unimaginable area for him, and that would give him a real opportunity for escape.

But it was just an opportunity, for he had no map, no water, and no food. He could head east and hope to run into civilization. The river that flowed through the village might be safe to stop and drink at once he'd put some distance between him and the Sorcerers, but they might think of that, too. As for food, well, it wouldn't be the first time Ranma found himself in the middle of nowhere going hungry. He'd survived that before; he'd just have to survive again.

_We'll just have a nice, fancy feast on roasted squirrels and other local "delicacies" when I get back to Yushu. Kunō can foot the bill, and then I'll go back to Jusenkyō._ He pulled the fabric of his shirt taut, flattening the breasts of his female body against his chest. _Then I can get rid of these and do what I came here to do._

Behind a patch of rhubarb, Ranma slipped into the forest. Indeed, his escape had been all too easy. Who did these people think they were? Did they believe themselves so powerful that no one could possibly escape? What a joke! No wonder they had problems holding on to the Guide. They could really stand to wise up. For all the trouble they'd gone through to find Saffron, they hadn't even gone to the right place. Why didn't they just go to Mount Phoenix and get that cleared up? What did they even want with the man, anyway?

_To save themselves,_ thought Ranma. _That's what she said, right? Ridiculous. Saffron only ever cared about himself anyway. He would never be of much help to anybody, especially now…._ Ranma shuddered. _Well, the less said about goddamn Saffron the better._

So Ranma moved on. He headed east, toward one of the rocky ridges that ran along the edge of the valley. Not wanting to climb right over, Ranma tried to find a way around. He made for a gap in the trees—a small clearing with sparse, yellowed grasses. The skies were blue with patches of fast-moving clouds, and the ridge in front of Ranma sported trees until just short of the mountain's peak. The sun had risen roughly ten degrees above that, so Ranma looked upon the ridge with a hand up to shade his eyes.

_Let's go upriver then._ Ranma put the mountain on his right and moved on, wading into the trees once more. The key to finding your way around unfamiliar territory was to keep your eye on a fixed point of reference in the distance—whether that be a mountain in the daylight or the pole star at night. With only the mountain looming above the trees, Ranma used that to guide him. Odds were he wouldn't circle the mountain in the span of ten minutes, after all, so there would be no harm in keeping it firmly on his right. Logically, nothing of the sort could possibly happen!

So when Ranma found himself in another sparse clearing, he looked to his right, seeing the mountain there, and to the left, though the trees, where the village must've been, and frowned. The clearing was eerily silent. When he'd opened his eyes in that straw hut, the calls of birds had been melodic and incessant, yet in that clearing, there were no sounds of animals at all. Only the rustling of the wind disturbed the silence, and Ranma stood still for a moment, feeling the currents and eddies of the air as the wind whipped by him.

_Something isn't right here._

There was a rustling in the woods. A twig snapped, and then nothing.

Ranma tensed up. Someone had found him? Ranma didn't stick around to find out. He dashed off for the far side of the clearing; better to get away than even to stand and fight. Taking the time to investigate and silence a potential threat would slow him down. Better to run. There were no points for defeating foes only to be captured in the end. So he ran, not looking back.

Only to end up right where he'd started again—the impossible clearing—except this time, there was someone else. The girl with the reddish-brown hair, the leader of the Sorcerer party, held her staff upright with one end. "You're wasting your time," she said, slowly and deliberately, thinking over every word before she said it. "Only a Sorcerer can navigate the Maze."

Ranma stomped past her. "This doesn't look like any kind of maze I've ever seen. And why do you speak Japanese, anyway? Is that standard in tribal curriculum after basket-weaving and psychic projection?"

The Captain narrowed her eyes. "Are you trying to be irritating?"

"Oh, you know, I tend to get pissed when people do certain things: when people don't clean up after themselves, when I ask for shrimp ramen takeout and get chicken instead, when I'm kidnapped by people I'd never heard of and hogtied. I'd think you would be pretty pissed off if those happened to you, too." Ranma cocked his head. "Or maybe you don't mind chicken ramen so much. You're not that twisted, are you? Because only truly heinous people like chicken ramen."

Sighing, the Captain tapped her staff on the ground. "Come with me. You have no chance of escaping the Maze."

"How's that? What if I beat you senseless? Does it stop?"

"No."

"And if I want to take my chances?"

The Captain tilted her staff at a nearby tree. "Look for yourself."

Puzzled, Ranma obliged her. He shimmied up the tree trunk into the canopy, but what awaited him there was a dizzying sight. The view of the his surroundings shifted every time he turned his head. First the mountain was behind him, then in front of him, then somewhere else entirely, but the one constant was an image in the distance. A girl far away clung to the top of a tree, staring into space. Ranma waved a hand at her, and she waved back, mirroring his movements. When he stopped, so did she.

_Are you serious? A forest that wraps around so I can look at my own ass?_

Not that it was unpleasant to look at. Indeed, it was at least as well-shaped as those of most girls he knew—but that was emphatically not the point!

Ranma jumped down from the canopy and blinked a couple times to straighten out his sight. "All right, that was a bit of a trip. What the hell is with this forest? How does it work?"

"It takes dozens of men meditating at all hours to channel the spell. Anyone who enters is trapped irrevocably unless they can feel the flows and eddies of ki and sense the illusion. It protects us from outsiders and, when necessary, keeps them in."

"And why on earth would you want to keep me here?" asked Ranma. "Clearly we don't get along well."

"The Lady would like an audience with you."

"Oh really? And why should I listen to anything you people have to say?"

"Because you're capable of mercy, and we recognize that," said the Captain. "_I_ recognize that." She gestured to the trees and the ground. "Going outside the Maze—that isn't our way, but you're in a position to help us, Outsider, and we _need_ your help."

"Even if you have to take it by force," Ranma cut in.

The Captain nodded solemnly. "For that, and for what you did, you're owed a debt. Help us, and I will walk you through this Maze myself. I promise you that."

Ranma scoffed. Help them with what? With finding Saffron? He wasn't going anywhere. Still, Ranma wasn't about to let that slip from his lips so easily. As earnest and impassioned the Captain's speech had been, Ranma knew well that promises only mattered as much as a person could be trusted. She'd already stabbed him in the back (or in the leg, as it happened) for his generosity and mercy once before.

But he also had little choice in the matter, and the Captain reinforced the point by making a gesture toward the woods with her hand. From the forest came four more Sorcerers, wielding staves.

If all they wanted to do was talk, he could listen and then decide. If he couldn't force his way out, the only option was to hear what these Sorcerers had to say.

#

The girl called herself Wuya, but to her men and the rest of the villagers, she was addressed only as _Captain_. For someone with such a position of authority, Wuya looked rather young. Ranma guessed she couldn't have been more than twenty years old. Then again, it wasn't like she was ordering around people twice his age, either. The guards might've been a couple years older, if that, and most of the villagers were the same. Indeed, Ranma spotted hardly a man or woman over forty as he walked through the village. Perhaps it was an artifact of short life expectancy out in the wild, or maybe using magic all their lives made them age prematurely and die. There were a hundred good reasons for it, yet Ranma found none of them comforting.

_It wasn't just that forest. There's something off with this whole village._

Ranma thought it best not to ask questions about matters that didn't concern him, though. He wouldn't be staying long. Those people wanted Saffron; that was the only thing truly relevant to him. Ranma asked the Captain about her people's interest in the Phoenix King, getting a cryptic answer in turn.

"The magic we wield—how we manipulate the flows of ki in everything we touch—is what makes our people strong and unique, but it also carries with it a great danger if we can't keep it in check."

"Really? What happens then?" asked Ranma. "You guys become the magical equivalent of crackheads?"

The Captains stared.

"Drug addicts. Every society in the whole world uses drugs. People have been boozing for over five thousand years." Ranma looked the Captain up and down her stiff exterior. "You look to me like a shrooms girl."

Wuya looked ahead, silence her only answer.

"Nothing? Well, I guess that makes sense. You strike me as the dry and humorless type. Throw yourself all the way into your work, huh? Probably never touched a guy in your life."

"Why would I want to touch a man?"

Ranma eyed her warily. "Don't stand so close to me, then. This body only lasts until I can find some hot water, I'll have you know. It's those springs, right? They do funny things to you."

"We've lived in this valley for thousands of years," said the Captain. "We know what the spring ground can do."

"You think there's a spring that can wipe that constant scowl off your face? Because honestly, it's creeping me out."

To Wuya's bemused expression, the party walked on. As they approached the tower, the farmers' fields gave way to rocky crags and sparse weeds, and in the distance, away from the banks, the tree line followed, hugging the edges of the valley. The group moved along the western bank, steering clear of the swollen river's wet, slippery stones. The waters accelerated, crashing together as roaring rapids before falling off the edge of a cliff, yet the black tower's base was shrouded in the mists of the waterfall.

"Nice tower," said Ranma. "It's big and tall and long. You guys didn't build it to compensate for something, did you? Must've taken a while."

The Captain glared. "It took three months to design but only one to build. The Lady commanded her people to rip the rock directly from the earth if they had to. It is the Lady's tower—the heart of our village built anew, a refuge of the knowledge and arts of our people dating back for over a thousand years."

Ranma rolled his eyes. "You can spare me the tour guide spiel next time. But who is this Lady?"

"She has guided us since before I can remember. She is the leader of our people. Through me, she instructs the Sorcerer Guard. Through the High Priestess, Henna, she instructs the clergy in the history of healing. She has watched over this village for decades, ensuring that we are safe from the outside and from the magics we wield."

Ranma frowned. _Safe from their own magic, huh? How is Saffron supposed to help with that?_

Through thick mist, the party descended down a steep cliffside path, and Ranma saw more of the tower and its grounds. The spire sat atop a series of stone rings, each packed with earth and stacked on top of each other as if a child had built them with premade blocks. The rings shrunk with each level, culminating in the narrow spire. It was a fortress of dark stone, pristine down to the men and women who walked its grounds.

The path wrapped around a pool at the base of the waterfall, and a crowd of interested villagers, servants, and guards stood at the side of the path. The Captain's warriors greeted her by tapping their staves on the ground, giving the group a noisy welcome as they approached. The gate to the outermost ring was made of two slabs of stone, and the guards parted them with magic, not even needing to lay a finger on the rock. The party emerged from an earthen tunnel onto the outskirts of the tower grounds: a courtyard and training area. On these fields, men and women sparred with one another, throwing punches or calling down lightning to smite their partners. To the last man, they were clad in black, just as the Captain who walked with him was.

"So these are your men," Ranma said to the Captain.

"They are of the Sorcerer Guard," said Wuya, leading the party to the next gate. "Every day they train to serve and protect this village, sacrificing the comforts of their personal lives, of—" Her eyes flashed, and she paused. "They sacrifice much," she said at last. "While they are on the grounds, they are trained by my second, Xiu."

Wuya pointed him out; he was a short boy of dark complexion and big black eyes. The Captain's second paced the outer ring, intervening in sparring matches when his subordinates showed poor form or maneuvers. He shouted corrections to their faces, demonstrated his superior execution on their bodies, throwing a man into the wall of the next ring. And when that man fell to the ground amidst rubble and dirt, Xiu walked away to shout at the next pair of warriors that offended him.

"Nice guy," said Ranma.

Wuya nodded. "He isn't known for his good demeanor."

With each gate the group passed, they delved deeper into the compound. The Sorcerer Guard, on training duty, occupied most of the outer rings, but their exercises varied from level to level. Sometimes they sparred directly, like on the first ring. On others, they focused on the more magical aspects of their arts. They shot fire from their fingertips, and the roots of the earth sprouted to bind their foes.

On the inner rings, the warriors of the Guard made way for priests and healers. Medics erased sores from the skin; weak, atrophied muscles bulged to full strength and function, and their owner walked on legs that wouldn't carry him just ten minutes before.

"It's difficult to practice magic on people," said Wuya. "The body resists invasion from these energies. One must be trained to use the arts for healing."

"Or using them for combat, right?" asked Ranma.

Wuya shook her head. "There are some things we do not practice. I fear what would happen if those lessons were used for war instead."

"Even the Guard doesn't know how?"

"It is forbidden."

Ranma nodded. "Sounds like you people at least have some sense about you. I think I call that a good thing."

"I would say the same. Magic is not to be used lightly."

"Tell me about it."

The Captain eyed him cautiously.

"You're the ones who want my help," said Ranma. "Call me curious. Ain't nothing wrong with that, is there?"

Looking ahead, the Captain sighed quietly and relented. "There are several expressions of ki magic. There is the physical expression, which involves moving objects at a distance or making ice from water by sapping heat from it. There is the corporeal expression, which can be used to enhance one's own strength and speed, to heal others or cause decay. Finally, there is the mental expression—the use of magic to sense the world or influence minds. The Guard practices the physical expression most; the priests are the only ones with enough training to heal significant injuries."

"And the mental aspect? You guys don't do psychic stuff?"

"Some do use it to detect an enemy's strike before it comes. The channelers specialize in illusions, as I've said, but influencing others' minds is not their role. No free man is permitted to practice such magic."

"What about you? Your techniques don't seem to fit this tidy scheme."

At last, a tiny smile came to the Captain's face. "No, they don't. The most powerful of all magics is ki wielded in its purest form. I've trained for years to master it, and I am very good at what I do."

"Not good enough," muttered Ranma.

The Captain motioned to one of her subordinates, and a staff point stuck Ranma in the rear.

"Well now, keep that up and we'll be friends soon enough! Some of the best people I know are people I beat the shit out of every once in a while."

Glaring, the Captain said nothing more, and that was fine for Ranma. Clearly he could get under her skin well enough, and that would be important if she were half the important figure she made herself out to be. Ranma was being brought to negotiate with their leader, and for what? His freedom in exchange for the location of Saffron? That seemed like an easy trade…if these people were trustworthy. Being kidnapped after doing a good deed had without a doubt soured him on the Sorcerers, and despite Wuya's plea for Ranma's cooperation, the girl seemed just a hair on edge and resentful of Ranma. It went beyond Ranma's snide remarks, too. Was it just because they didn't usually have guests? Did they look down on people from the outside, or was it something more?

It _was_ something more, wasn't it? There was a tenseness in the air. It wasn't just Wuya's gruff demeanor or her second's shouting from earlier. The priests on the tower grounds spooked Ranma, too, for they weren't at all the gentle healers he might've imagined. They tended to wounds without a word as far as he could see, and there were quite a few patients. Some of them could be explained by simple farming accidents—cuts and scrapes and such—but a black eye is a black eye, and Ranma saw more than a couple of those. Maybe it was just a little brawl and nothing more, but in Ranma's heart, that didn't sound too convincing.

After a few final rungs, the party stopped at the tower's entrance, where the locks to the outer doors ground against each other and slid into the walls. "This is a great honor for an outsider," said Wuya. "You should show the proper respect."

"Oh yeah," said Ranma. "I'll try to curb my enthusiasm."

Wuya glared, but she said nothing more to him. At her command, the doors parted, revealing the inner chambers. Torches cast flickering shadows on the court, and its members lined up in two files, kneeling for Wuya and her men. The outer doors closed, echoing through the tower—a low vibration, but with the wave of a hand, the monarch of the tribe silenced the overtones. She rose from a jade throne, taking a torch with her, so all could see her as she addressed the court.

"The Captain of the Guard has brought us this outsider," she said. "For this matter of crucial import to the village, the Captain and I will see to her alone."

The woman was tall and imposing, with long, reddish-brown hair to below her waist. She was older than her servants, but she was hardly gray or wrinkled. If anything, she looked only about as old as Ranma's mother. She wore a pure white, hoodless robe with jade trimmings by her wrists and ankles—a far cry from the drab attire of her subjects—and she walked with a regal, dignified step. Her eyes fixated on Ranma, never wavering even as the tower echoed with banging doors and footsteps of her departed officers. Only Wuya, Ranma, and the Lady were left in the center of the court.

"So," said Ranma, "this chick told me I'd be meeting you. She didn't say anything about meeting her mom."

"I assure you," said the Lady, her lips curling with a smile, "I have never given birth to a child, nor have I had the pleasure of raising one myself. Alas, it is likely too late for me to try. I lie with no man; the village is my husband, and I work to satisfy it every day and night."

"There are so many ways that statement could be taken wrongly," said Ranma.

"Ah, a peculiarity of your language, yes? Forgive me if I've misspoken; it is rare that we have visitors, and even rarer to meet someone from your country. I have been remiss in not introducing myself. My name is Sindoor; I am leader of our people. And you?"

"Saotome Ranma."

The Lady frowned. "And how do you write that? As 'a maiden who rides a wild horse'?"

"That's not exactly what it means," said Ranma, glaring.

"Forgive me again. Is my Japanese appropriate?"

"Appropriate? Sheesh, yours is probably better than mine. Nobody's really explained that bit to me yet."

"We had another visitor once, a traveler it seemed. He wandered into the village, and in exchange for meals and shelter, he shared with us his language and culture. It was an enlightening experience for all of us. I advised most of the Guard and the palace servants to learn from him, and I think we are better for it."

"Yeah, well, history lessons are good. And hey, it's convenient for me, or else I wouldn't understand a thing you say."

"Yes," said Sindoor. "If not for that, the Captain wouldn't have understood what you said about Saffron, yes?"

Ranma shifted his weight, looking away. "No, I guess not."

"You know him," said Wuya. "How? Why?"

"Please," said Sindoor. "Let us not rush matters. After all, it may be common for outsiders to know the legend of Saffron. They might tell it to their children to frighten them at night."

Ranma scoffed. "You want to scare a kid these days? Tell them Santa's going to give them coal for Christmas. A power hungry runt with a god complex doesn't scare me."

"So it isn't common knowledge," said Sindoor. "You are Japanese, you are foreign to this land, yet you know of Saffron."

_Well, aren't you clever._

"It is most strange, isn't it? After all, we may isolate ourselves now, but we haven't always. We've dealt with strangers before. Once there were men who represented a 'Party.' They threatened us; they threatened all the tribes of the basin if we resisted, but we did resist. We fought them. We pitted magic against their great machines and weaponry, and there was death, on both sides. After that, they left us alone. They said we could live in peace, as long as we made no effort to 'publicize' ourselves, to make our resistance known to the world at large." She met Ranma's gaze, cool and confident. "The Party wouldn't let knowledge of our ways reach the outside, surely not a legend so dangerous as Saffron's. So, I must ask you, Saotome Ranma, _how_ do you know it?"

"You've met him," said Wuya. "You've fought him. You said we were weak, like him. You could only know that through battle. The caretaker of the springs said so himself—a battle was fought there."

Ranma looked between them, thinking carefully on what to say next. "All right, so what if I did? No one's told me what you want with the guy. I'm all for being helpful, but you're the ones keeping me here, and you haven't given me any reason to talk. So, you can either bust out the force lightning, Emperor, or you can explain to me what all this is about."

"She is not titled _Emperor_," said Wuya. "She is the Lady."

"That's not the point."

Captain Wuya began to glare, but Lady Sindoor raised a hand to put her at ease. "I think Saotome Ranma's request is reasonable, don't you agree, Captain?"

"Perhaps," said Wuya.

"I will do my best to persuade her, then," said the Lady. "Please excuse us, Captain."

"Being alone with the Outsider is unwise. She is stronger than she looks."

"No bust, no brawn," said Ranma, poking a finger at his chest. "You might want to work on that."

"I'm sure I can defend myself," the Lady assured Wuya.

Begrudgingly, the Captain acknowledged the Lady's command with a bow and a nod, and though she watched Ranma carefully, she departed the court's chambers without another word.

"I find it's often simpler dealing personally with matters before me," said Sindoor. "Intentions can't be misunderstood that way. While any institution requires structure and organization, I strive to do as much as I can personally. It's more efficient."

"Yeah, well, so sorry, but I'm not really interested in how your grand royal court operates. That chick said we could deal and you'd let me go without any hassle. Is that true, or isn't it?"

"Your condition is that you understand what we'll do with the information you provide and why it is necessary, yes?"

"Something like that. It should be an easy question to answer, so I don't see what the problem is."

"Indeed, if I understand from the Captain correctly, you are owed at least that much." Sindoor went to the back wall, behind the throne, and with a wave of her hand, a heavy stone door moved aside, revealing a room. "Please, follow me, Saotome Ranma. I will show you what you need to see."

Reluctantly, Ranma entered the private room, a stone meditation chamber with three torches on each wall, giving the room a golden and orange glow. A pool of water, rectangular in shape, occupied most of the floor space, and water trickled in continuously from a hole square hole in the wall.

"I find the constancy of flowing water makes it easier to concentrate," said the Lady. "It washes away all the smaller, individual sounds that might occupy our minds, and it is an apt metaphor for ki magic itself. You see, finding peace and tranquility is of paramount importance to people like us. Every day, we endeavor to maintain control over our abilities. It is imperative that we do not let the magic we wield influence us in return, but the nature of our discipline is that, sadly, we do not always succeed."

Ranma shrugged. "What's the worst that could happen?"

The Lady touched a hand to Ranma's shoulder. "See for yourself."

#

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

A drum pounded; its vibrations carried in the ground. To the call of war, the Sorcerers prepared themselves. They fashioned their staves from fallen logs and moved earth and rock with just their minds to build a defense. In broad daylight, the warriors of the village mustered by the waterfall and lake, raising their weapons to the sky.

"Some time ago, we went to war with one of the neighboring tribes. The losses we suffered forced us to close the village to the outside, so that we might rebuild and recover." Sindoor grabbed Ranma's shoulder blade, unwilling to let him wander, to break the vision. "The scars have faded with time, but I was there—I remember—so I know what the battle felt like to me. Though I've tried, I can't forget."

Ranma waved his hand through a sweaty leather helmet, but his fingers touched only air.

"During that war, we found ourselves pushed back to the valley, so we marched to battle to defend our village, to see it safe from those who'd destroy us. Overnight, we evacuated the lower quarter; we sent the mothers and children upriver, past the waterfall. We thought if we fell, we'd destroy the path up the cliff to give them time to escape, but that was a last contingency. We never truly considered we might fail. We believed our control over the elements would carry the day, that the river would be our best weapon against the enemy, and if all else failed, we had our prince, our captain, to lead us."

Sindoor pointed out a tall figure, a man who towered a head above his comrades. Unlike the other Sorcerers, he wielded a unique weapon: a huge, frightening sword—as long as he was tall—that lay sheathed in its scabbard. As he walked, the length of the sword trailed behind.

"His name was Bailu, and it was quite appropriate, for he danced about his foes like the agile egret. He rallied us at the waterfall, for only his best warriors could defend the path against the enemy. He was our Prince, our Captain, and none of us wished to fail him. On his command, we would hold fast while we brought the wrath of the river and mountains from relative safety above."

On the horizon, shadows of the coming army gathered. Scouts on horseback rode along the river and turned back, reporting to their forces. Their infantry led the charge, and mounted bowmen slung arrows overhead, a protective rain of death. Sindoor led Ranma up the path, to the top of the waterfall, where the bulk of the Sorcerer Guard meditated. They opened crevices in the ground, gaping chasms that swallowed horses and riders, trapping the enemy below. The river, a serpent in shape and form, reared back and swept the footmen away, and they tumbled like chess pieces on a broken board. Prince Bailu and his men mopped up the scattered remnants. A single swing of his sword shattered their armor, splintered their bows, and broke their bones without scratch or scrape on the skin.

"We thought ourselves invincible," said Sindoor. "That's why, even when the tide of battle turned, we thought surely we'd win."

Water blasted the front line; the river barreled into the Sorcerers at the base of the waterfall. Downstream, their enemies pounded the water with staff and fist. They shaped the water in the forms of great sea beasts: the mako, the hammerhead, the great white.

"They turned the elements against us. With their vast numbers, it was all the distraction they needed to push the waterfall path, to engage us where a rock slide or windstorm would endanger both sides. The Prince was the best of us. He defended every man valiantly, but he wasn't perfect. Even he could err."

With a mighty swing, Prince Bailu plowed his greatsword into the ground! The shockwaves cut across the enemy flank, razing them to the earth, but this cone of death knew not friend from foe. Among the pink and red armors of the enemy, a handful of black tunics fell, silenced, lifeless.

"The Prince dropped his sword, and it lay across the bodies of our fallen. The rest of the Guard battled on—we shattered the path up the cliffside, so none would breach the upper village—but Prince Bailu stood still, stunned and paralyzed with the weight of what he'd done. The one thing a captain should never do is take the lives of his men, and the weight of that error took all the fight out of him. None of the enemy would touch him, and nothing, not the shouts of his lieutenants, not the death cries of his army, would rouse him. Nothing so much as moved the Prince's soul until the enemy routed every last Sorcerer below. Everyone but him.

"They held him at knife-point. I don't know what they said, but something must have stirred within him. Anger, perhaps, that he'd failed his men and led them to death? Sorrow, that he'd killed some of them by his own hand? Whatever it was, it was something powerful, something so terrible this valley has never seen shade of it since."

A shockwave rippled across the lower valley; it kicked up dust and dirt and debris. The great army that had taken the river vanished, and in their place, piles of ash wafted along the riverbank. The trees, too, crumbled into soot. The valley descended into abject silence, for not even a single bird sang in the wake of destruction.

Ranma trembled. A cold sweat broke out on his brow. _The birds don't sing because there aren't any. They're all gone._

Only water flowed from the river—just as water flowed into Sindoor's meditation chambers. That was the sound Ranma heard. Sindoor let go of his shoulder, and the vision dissipated. The leveled lower valley faded, giving way to the unsteady light of the torches and cold stone walls. The Lady's hand left Ranma's shoulder, and the last of her warmth died away, leaving him to still and lifeless room.

"The Prince's spell was nothing I'd ever seen before," said Sindoor. "I'm not sure if it's right to say he discovered, created, or invented it. No single word fully captures what happened. The Prince saved us that day. He obliterated the enemy army, but he considered his discovery an unparalleled mistake. One man cannot wield pure destruction safely. It was ten years before anything would grow in the swath the Prince had leveled! The Prince did the only thing he could do to ensure that he would never bring about death on that scale again. He drowned himself in the sacred spring, taking the secrets of his ultimate spell with him.

"The war ended soon after that. Our enemies thought better of attacking again, but we were too weakened to go to their doorstep, either. The Prince's mother quickly passed on, and the village came to my hands. I knew that though the Prince was gone, it was only a matter of time before another Sorcerer grew as powerful and dangerous as he. I searched through the scrolls of our great library, hoping in vain for some solution, some means to keep our magic in check. I happened on an ancient idea, long forgotten, that would protect my people from their darkest urges—urges that, with our powers, could lead to catastrophe. This means is called the _Sieve of Ki_.

"The Sieve filters the toxic energies that might otherwise poison our arts. It keeps us safe and sane, but only while it functions. The Sieve has failed us, Saotome Ranma. It has been sated, and the protection it affords has been taken from us. Every moment that passes, any one of my people could herald our end. A man is responsible for the Sieve's failure, and we are seeking him. Whoever that person is, he caused a great disturbance in the ripples, the eddies of ki that flow through this place. That is why we seek a being of power, such as Saffron. Only such a magnificent creature could be responsible for this deed. We must ensure that his power can never cause the Sieve to falter again."

"And you're so sure it's him?" asked Ranma.

"It would take a being of great power to sate the Sieve from outside the village. So you'll forgive me if, when mention Saffron comes to me, I assume the culprit is him? I know the legends well, Saotome Ranma. The Captain found you at the spring ground, whose waters Saffron can use for his transformation."

"Fine, assume it if you want. What are you going to do, then? You'll go after him?"

"Yes, yes we will. It's sad that this may put us in conflict with the Phoenix, but for what I see, we have no other choice. You can help us, Saotome Ranma. You can tell us about the outside that we know so little about, that we have shielded ourselves from for so long. If you know even a little about Saffron or his people, it may save lives."

_You mean it'll save Sorcerer lives by taking Phoenix lives instead._ Ranma sighed, getting a headache. Were he in their position, would he do things differently? No, he wouldn't, for he _had_ faced that trial, and he hadn't regretted the choice he'd made.

So Ranma did feel he could understand these Sorcerers. In fact, he may have understood Prince Bailu better than even Sindoor had. Sindoor might've failed to fathom how Bailu—outnumbered and outmatched—found the pinnacle of his power and slew everyone who'd killed his men, but Ranma knew that feeling. He knew it in every fiber of his muscles, every bundle of his nerves. He knew it when he held a hot, charred doll in his hands, when her eyelids drooped dangerously low. Ranma had clung to hope where Bailu despaired, but that didn't make them different. Either way, men seek destroy everything that opposes them and make their enemies feel it, make them regret it, for days to come.

And Ranma had surely made Saffron regret it. Saffron would be regretting it for the next decade, at least until he grew up again. Yet even as a child, that arrogant bird-brain was causing problems for Ranma.

"I see you are troubled," said Sindoor. "I assure you what we wish to know is simple. It's been many years since our village was exposed to the outside world. You seem to be familiar with Saffron and his people. We only wish to be prepared. I assure you, we have no quarrel with you, Saotome Ranma. Once we have no more need of your aid, you will be free to go with my apologies. It is distasteful that we've had to resort to such measures, but this is an exceptional set of circumstances. I assure you, it is not our way to seek outsiders. We only wish to keep to ourselves if at all possible. I regret that we could not keep to that maxim here."

"Bet you don't regret it enough to let me go right now. And what about the Guide? You guys did a real number on him. I'm surprised you haven't started zapping me already, honestly."

"It seems only fair to repay an act of mercy with respect," said Sindoor. "yet if violence is what you'd prefer, we will meet your expectations in kind. I will take no pleasure in it, but I will do what I must for my people. Still, it is my hope we can work together amicably, as amicable as the situation can be. Ultimately, the choice is yours."

#

Some choice it was. Cooperate or risk torture at best? Ranma scoffed at the very implication that there was a choice there. He didn't mind cooperating. There was just a question of how much cooperation he would provide.

If the Sorcerers wanted to fight a war against the Phoenix, fine. That wasn't his concern. People would die, yes, but people were dying all the time, fighting wars with or without Ranma's involvement. He had his own safety to worry about. There were lots of things worthy of enduring torture and death for, but Saffron's people weren't among them.

So Ranma decided to tell them what they were interested in hearing. The Lady and her Captain held a private audience with Ranma in the court, and Ranma decided to keep his story simple.

"Saffron was looking to transform, yeah," he explained it to Sindoor and Wuya. "I'd been to Jusenkyō a couple times. That's how I ended up looking like this—way more gorgeous than any guy ever should look. So the Guide and his daughter came to me for help, trying to make sure Saffron wouldn't destroy the springs completely doing his transformation thing. We fought, and as it happened, we ended up breaking Saffron out of his egg early. So he didn't get all the way finished. Guess he was like a barbecue with gasoline poured on—flaming and explosive and out of control. Anyway, what he wanted and what I wanted were at odds, so we had a fight. I—" Ranma frowned, catching himself. "Let's just say I sent him and his minions packing for Mount Phoenix."

Perched on her throne, Sindoor nodded in appreciation. "It must've been quite difficult. Saffron is a legendary being for the peoples of the Plateau. Perhaps his immaturity made an impossible task merely improbable instead. Still, I must imagine that defeating him was a difficult task."

"Wasn't too hard," said Ranma with a shrug.

Captain Wuya stared Ranma down. "Saffron gave up his maturity after a battle with you, Outsider? How can that be? You must've wounded him gravely for him to give up on completing his transformation."

"I guess I did."

The Lady leaned closer to Ranma, her eyes piercing and razor-sharp in focus. "How gravely?" she asked.

Ranma raised an eyebrow. Sure, he'd glossed over what exactly had transpired between him and Saffron, but surely to them there was no difference.

Except there was. Both Wuya and Sindoor watched him intensely, making Ranma feel ill at ease. This was too important to them. Maybe he was the one feeling ripples of magic in the air, but Sindoor and Wuya's interested gazes added to the unsettling mystique of the village. The youth of the villagers, the lone tower amidst ramshackle huts—none of it made sense. They were hiding something from him, something big and important, something they didn't want him to find out or see. But what could it be?

Ranma had no answer to that question. All he knew was that, if these people wouldn't be straight with him, he wasn't about to bare his soul for their sake. What he'd done to Saffron didn't need to be said in so many words.

"Well?" asked Sindoor. "How gravely did you wound him?"

"Grave enough he won't be too much of a problem if you want to go fight him, at least for a while," said Ranma. "I got him through the chest with a tornado, basically."

The Captain turned aside, mumbling to the Lady in Chinese. Though Sindoor responded calmly, Wuya's words grew louder and more animated with each passing second.

"Enough," said Sindoor, placid and cool. "We shouldn't bore Saotome Ranma with our discussions. We'll have to consider this tale carefully. Of course, I expect there's quite a bit more we can learn about the Phoenix and Saffron from you, our Japanese friend."

She was a bit naÏve and deluded if she considered Ranma a friend to them. And of course there was more he could tell them—he wasn't about to say everything he knew right away. Then they might not have any more use for him, and he'd find out first-hand whether they intended to let him go, as Wuya had promised, or if their intentions toward him were more sinister.

Ranma didn't want to find out too soon. Would these people kill him when they had Saffron in their clutches? Would they find him no longer useful—or no longer a threat—if they knew Saffron had been reduced to a small child with a horrendous haircut? All possible. As much as Sindoor herself had tried to persuade Ranma, showing him why they'd abducted him and what they ultimately wanted, the facts remained: they'd taken him, and they would've taken the Guide. Maybe good, yet desperate people would do that. But a lot of bad people would do that too.

In the end, the Sorcerers' problems weren't Ranma's own, and he deemed it better not to leave his safety to the chance that they were honorable and just.

So while the Sorcerers prepared themselves to face Phoenix people in battle, Ranma spent the time to himself thinking on a way to escape. The existence of the Maze meant he couldn't just waltz out of there—that was why Sindoor felt safe letting him wander around, no doubt. Despite scouting up and down the river, past the tower and into the woods south of the waterfall, Ranma found no obvious gaps in the Maze—nothing he was willing to risk himself over, anyway.

With forest on all sides, the best Ranma could think of was to swim downriver in freezing water and hope the confusing magic of the Maze wouldn't get him turned around or drown him. It was a risky idea. Surely he wasn't _that_ desperate. No, Ranma resolved he had never tried such a moronic idea, that he had absolutely not become disoriented while trying to swim his way to freedom in the river, and he most certainly did not do his best rendition of Akane swimming for her life while trying to figure out which way was up.

After losing a day trying to dry off and not get hypothermia from that debacle, Ranma was more circumspect about his chances. Wandering about all by his lonesome was doing him little good. He needed a different approach.

At first, he thought the secret to escaping might be in the Sorcerers' magic. After all, the Captain had said that only Sorcerers could freely walk through the Maze. If Ranma learned their magic, maybe that would do the trick. Ranma didn't expect any of them to teach him the ways of magic, but he knew a thing or two about manipulating ki already. He figured he could pick something up on his own if he watched the right things and studied the pertinent techniques.

He started with the Guard, watching their sparring exercises on the tower grounds from afar, but he found their approach to wielding magic horrendously flawed. They relied on magic exclusively, using it for every attack and maneuver, and because they practiced against each other, they would never improve. If these people really meant to go after the Phoenix, they'd be in for a rude awakening—marching on Saffron's people would prove a bloodier, more desperate affair than Sindoor realized.

But Ranma would be long gone by then if he had anything to say about it. Whatever happened after that he couldn't be blamed for, could he?

Regardless, Ranma found the Guard's training unhelpful, so he stopped by a small market near the top of the waterfall instead. It was a place for craftsmen and artisans to do their work—work they did with magic more than their hands. A smith tempered swords through inner heat and fire. Baskets assembled themselves with but a passing glance from their weavers, and a rope-maker seared the ends of a braided cord with a spark from her fingertips. That could be useful. Being able to start a fire from nothing but one's internal energies? It would definitely be preferable to rubbing sticks together and hoping for a flame. Still, it couldn't be efficient, could it? Why, for example, would a man shape a pot of clay with his mind instead of just using his own two hands?

"It's the way we work," said a potter, one of the few villagers who would speak to Ranma. "I feel the material and shape it exactly with magic. If I used my hands, one slip would render all my work moot. As I grow older, arthritis might make it impossible for me to use my hands, but I will still have magic. You people are the ones who have it backwards."

"What if you lose concentration?" asked Ranma. "Then you could screw up just as easily as if your hands did something wrong."

The potter laughed. "And if you use your hands to do the job, you can lose concentration just as easily."

Ranma huffed. He could argue about that for days if he wanted to, but it was all beside the point. Having a villager engage him was useful. Maybe he didn't have to use magic or find a gap in the Maze. This man might be able to tell him everything he needed.

"So it's the same for everyone, isn't it," said Ranma. "If we slip up, we lose control of what we're doing, and we end up doing something—" He cut himself off. "Well, we end up with a misshapen pot, huh? Bet the channelers can't afford to slip up, either."

"No, no, but they have each other to keep focused."

"How do you mean?"

"They hum in harmony," said the potter. "The tones keep them focused. It's a time-honored technique for difficult work."

"Clever. I bet it's hard, though. Anywhere you go, there are lots of other sounds. Must be distracting."

"Not at all. They have all the space they could want to themselves."

"Oh? Where's that?"

The potter laughed to himself, shaking his head at Ranma. Well, it was worth a try. If Ranma couldn't find a way through the Maze on his own, breaking the channelers' concentration seemed like a good idea. Maybe if he went around the village, listening for that humming, he could find them himself.

"So, Outsider, you aren't the next Sieve?"

Ranma blinked, snapped out of his wandering thoughts, and looked back at the potter and his tent. "Excuse me?"

"If you were Sieve, you would be locked away in the top of the tower by now," said the potter. "No, you can't be Sieve. I don't sense strong power in you."

"What do you mean? You don't think I'm powerful?"

The potter eyed a chunk of clay. The piece separated from the bulk and flew, splatting in Ranma's face.

"If you couldn't stop that, no, I don't think so."

Ranma wiped his face with his sleeve. "Cute. But I don't think you understand. How could I be your Sieve? The Sieve is a thing, isn't it?"

"Is that what you believe? You think a machine could take away all our instabilities? No, that's what the Sieve does. He lives with them, so we don't have to."

Ranma's stomach churned. "So what does that have to do with me? Why would you think I should be the next Sieve?"

"That's the way of things. When one Sieve is sated, the person responsible takes his place. His power gives him a higher capacity—no, wrong word. Let me see…a higher tolerance for it?"

_If that person is still a powerful being. If he was killed instead and is wearing diapers…_

"Outsider?"

Ranma stormed from the bazaar, heading back to the cliff and down the path by the waterfall. Sindoor and Wuya—they'd lied to him. They deliberately let him think the Sieve was a thing that Saffron had broken with his power, but that wasn't it at all. They didn't just want Saffron to make sure he would never break the Sieve again. They wanted him to _be_ the Sieve, to become the Sieve's successor. That's why they were so concerned about how badly Ranma had wounded Saffron. If he were too injured, he might not be able to serve their needs.

_I should've known. It didn't make sense. The Captain said Saffron could _help _them, but ever since I got here they've been trying to sell it like they wanted to take him prisoner, for their own protection. I knew they were lying to me, but I didn't see what was right in front of my face!_

Of course, Ranma had deceived them, too, keeping the extent of Saffron's injuries to himself for his own reasons. Perhaps that meant there could be no trust between him and the Sorcerers, but all along, Ranma had a choice. He could tell these people who'd taken him that Saffron had died and couldn't threaten or help them, saving them all a lot of effort and bloodshed. Or, he could let things play out and try to find freedom on his own. It all depended on how willing he was to leave his fate in the hands of these Sorcerers. Right then, the prospects weren't looking so good.

But the best test of a man's character is when you catch him in a lie. Does he keep lying to you, or will be admit the truth and defend his actions? That's why Ranma went back to the tower, looking for the leaders of this village to say what they would. From their deeds, he would judge them and choose his path.

Ranma found the Court of Sindoor absent its Lady. Instead, the Captain was in control. A pair of guards crossed their staves before Ranma, forbidding him entry, but the Captain waved him through.

"Let her pass," said Wuya. "What do you want, Outsider? Have you more information to offer to the Lady?"

"Not until I understand what I've been hearing," said Ranma. "Is what I'm told right? The Sieve is a fucking person?"

Wuya winced, and with a nod to court officers, she had the room cleared. Her momentary worry faded, and she met Ranma's gaze with sternness and confidence. "It was only a matter of time before you found out. Yes, the Sieve is a person. He lives at the top of the tower, isolated from the rest of the village, and he has carried a tremendous burden. The Sieve has mediated mediated the most extreme expressions of our powers, until Saffron sated him."

"And you have a person doing this? Whether they want to or not—is that right?"

"It's an immense sacrifice, but we only demand it because we cannot be safe any other way."

Easy for Wuya to say; she wasn't the one making sacrifices.

"I want to see him," said Ranma.

"What?"

"Take me to the Sieve. I want to see what it is you'd do with Saffron once you take him. If I'm going to be helping you, I deserve to know."

"It is forbidden!"

"Blah, blah, 'it's forbidden.' Do you want my willing cooperation or not?"

Wuya glared, but she glanced upward, to the ceiling, with an intense gaze. "There are too many people around to take you to him now. Go to the top of the cliff and stay there until dusk. I will meet you there."

#

By dusk, many of the palace attendants came up the trail along the cliff to return to their homes. But for the tower, there were few buildings or even huts in the part of the valley below the waterfall—there was a pond at the base of the waterfall and pool or spring by the tree line, but that was all. Though Ranma spotted many attendants to Sindoor's court on their way upriver, he saw no one from the Sorcerer Guard. They'd stopped sparring on the tower grounds about an hour before sunset, so where could they have gone? Did they live in the tower?

It was no more than a minor point of curiosity, but Ranma had little else to do to pass the time—beyond looking for Wuya, anyway. Even if Saffron could serve as the Sieve, Ranma wasn't concerned about what the Sorcerers would do to him. He wanted to meet the Sieve because the Sieve was a Sorcerer himself. A man making a sacrifice for the good of the village? That much Ranma could understand, but Ranma had a strong feeling that whoever broke the Sieve would be chosen to be the next, whether he wanted to or not. If they were willing to do that to one of their own people, why would they bother showing an outsider like Ranma any respect?

"Outsider." From the path down the waterfall came the Captain, her staff strapped to her back.

"About time," said Ranma. "What's the plan?"

"Climb onto my back."

"…are you kidding?"

"We will fly to the top of the tower, where the Sieve lives. You can't fly, so I will carry you."

"Fat chance! The only time I've piggybacked on top of a girl was when a doctor purposefully hit my pressure point so I couldn't walk."

"Why would a doctor do that to you?"

Ranma shrugged. "Oh, you know, guy thought it was his job to help me play nice with others."

The Captain stared.

"All right, fine, let's get on with it. You might want to take off that staff. I don't want to get stuck with it in a bad place."

Taking her staff in one hand, the Captain turned toward the tower, and Ranma climbed atop her back, wrapping his elbow around her neck for support.

"Outsider," she said, straining, "you're choking me."

"Oh, am I? Can't imagine why you'd think I'd do that. It's not like you've ever double-crossed _me_ before, is it? Is it?" Ranma released her, wrapping his arms around her chest instead. "It's a good thing you're pretty flat, or else this might be a bit awkward."

With an irritated breath, the Captain stepped up to the cliff and rose gently off the ground. They floated over the waterfall, their path steady and controlled. The easy speed of their travel gave Ranma a funny feeling.

_Man, if we had a bicycle and put me in a basket, this would be something out of a movie with a friendly alien._

In the twilight, Ranma and the Captain floated to the top of the tower, weathering a westerly breeze. The apex of Sindoor's palace had a flat top, and Ranma and the Captain came down right in the center of the circular roof of dusty, gray stone.

"There's a window here," said Wuya, leading him to the eastern face. "You should be able to reach it. Be quiet; there may be priests with the Sieve. You'll be in a room above him, able to watch. Don't make a sound. I'll come up the stairs."

Ranma nodded, and the Captain left him there as she jumped off the top of the tower to float to the ground.

For his part, Ranma peered over the edge, finding the small square window on the wall at a height that even he found a little dizzying. He turned his back to the edge and climbed down, swinging through the window feet-first. He found himself in a pitch-dark room, with only the light of a small flame flickering on the walls, coming in through a pair of windows in a dividing wall.

It was, as the Captain had said, an observation room, sitting several feet higher than the room it overlooked. Two square windows gave Ranma a view into the Sieve's chambers, in which three hooded men sat by a recessed, sunken fire. They faced away from Ranma. A fourth figure completed the circle, his face obscured. Soft, hushed voices whispered in rhythm, a meditation chant. Smoke from the fire diffused through the windows, carrying a strange, chemical smell. It was bitter, like burning leaves, yet sweet, too.

Until he heard a sickening scream.

The boy on the far side of the fire seized, crying out through clenched teeth. As far as Ranma could tell, the hooded figures weren't doing anything to him—they only held onto his arms—but that was the unsettling part about it. Being burned or zapped with lightning he could understand. Some sort of mental torture that no one else could see? It made Ranma's hairs stand on end, and he stepped back from the window, looking away.

After a few minutes of screams and silence alternating, a knock could be heard on the iron door to the Sieve's chambers. One of the hooded men went to the door, and he motioned to the two others to follow him. They put the fire out, and the boy in the dark room slumped over, falling back on the floor. His breathing was labored and choppy, but he didn't shed a single tear.

_Man, what have they done to this kid?_

A heavy door opened into the observation room, and the Captain slipped inside, clinging to the inner wall. Only a faint white glow from the tip of her staff cut away at the darkness. "The priests shouldn't disturb you," she whispered. "I've sent them away for the night."

"What were they doing?" asked Ranma.

"Trying to help him remember how to be Sieve again. Intense feelings can distract him. They must wash over him and become nothing."

"I wouldn't exactly call what they were doing _help_."

Wuya nodded regretfully. "It is difficult work. Believe me when I say it—no one sacrifices more for the village's safety than the Sieve. Those of us who feel the ripples of ki magic strongly can't help but be moved by them, at least a little. The Sieve is the antithesis of that. The Sieve feels the waves of ki from others and is unmoved by them. He bonds with all of us, and whenever we drift from serenity, he bears the burden instead. When he became Sieve, he was young, too young. I've watched him grow up in this room—isolated and alone—for the better part of his life. Until a new Sieve can be found, the priests will try to patch him, but their efforts will not hold forever. The sooner Saffron is ours, the sooner that boy won't have to shoulder the burden of all our sins anymore."

Ranma faced the window, watching the boy in the room below struggle like a wounded animal. Glancing at the Captain from the corner of his eye, Ranma said, "You don't like that he has to do this, do you?"

"No," said the Captain, staying put in her corner. "I think he's been punished enough."

"Punished for what? Breaking the last Sieve?"

The Captain looked away. "Perhaps you should ask him yourself."

"You want me to talk with him?"

"Yes. He can convince you, more than any of us, why no Sorcerer should be made to take on this burden. Go to that door. There's a window on the far wall; it's covered with a metal flap, but you can open it to get some light into the room."

"You're not coming with me?"

Opening the door to the hallway outside, the Captain glanced over her shoulder, muttering. "That is my punishment." She met Ranma's gaze, and a little louder, she said, "Show him comfort. For years, he's suffered for all of us. Help us find the new Sieve, so the priests won't need to come back and he can move on. If you can, my promise will stand."

Ranma scoffed. "Fine, fine, but does your mom know how soft you are on this kid?"

The Captain narrowed her eyes, and she shut the door to the observation room behind her.

_Bitch has a gooey heart after all. How cute._ He rolled his eyes and pushed on the door to the Sieve's chambers, descending the stair in pitch darkness. He felt along the wall for the window, and sure enough, there was a cubby hole for a covered window. He pushed out, and the latch gave way, allowing the twilight to come in.

And it was then that the boy whose labored breaths echoed through the room stirred. He spoke out in unintelligible Chinese. He slid along the floor, babbling and crying out incoherently.

"Easy, easy," said Ranma. "I'm not one of those priests or whatever. I'm just a typical Japanese guy. In a girl's body. And you might not even understand a word I'm saying, which would make this pretty pointless, huh?"

The boy stopped scurrying. He crawled along the floor, into the light, and for the first time, Ranma saw his face. He was skinny and pale, and his eyes were sunken. His hair was blond and unkempt. He wore little more than rags, and his knees were knobby and swollen.

_Geez, this isn't right. What have they done to this kid?_ Ranma shook his head and met the boy's gaze. "I guess you do understand me," said Ranma. "What's your name?"

The boy shrank back a little, so only his eyes could be seen from the shadows. "Ti—Tilaka."

"Pleased to meet you…or something. Anyway, you must be wondering what a Japanese guy is doing way out here, but—"

"I know," Tilaka cut in. "I know who you are."

"You do?"

"When you were brought to the village, I felt your presence."

"How's that?"

"The ripples of ki are strong from you, stronger than from any other outsider I've met. They were travelers or traders. You're different. You know how to fight."

"I guess you could say that, yeah," said Ranma. "Funny, though. Someone was just telling me they didn't think I was that strong."

"They don't recognize the way you use your ki." Tilaka laughed to himself. "I always liked how similar the words were, in our language and yours. It doesn't surprise me; the Guard trains day and night against each other. They don't know how the world feels outside."

"But you do because you were the Sieve."

"Not 'were.' I am the Sieve." Tilaka shifted position, sitting by the line between the twilight from the window and the shadows. "The Sieve listens to the people. She feels the ripples of ki that come from every living thing in the village. She moderates them. She damps them, so they cannot sway people. That's why she's needed."

"Well, the way I hear it, you're not supposed to do it anymore, right?"

"I would if I could."

"Why the hell would you want to do something like this?"

"Because I have sinned."

"What could you have possibly done to deserve this?"

Tilaka pursed his lips in reflection before speaking again. "It was eight years ago—my twelfth summer. The Lady picked us. She said she knew our potential, that we would one day lead the tribe as officers of the Guard. She trained us herself. She took us to the top of the waterfall and unearthed the rocks and trees from the ground. She showed us how to feel the world around us, to grasp it with our minds. She cultivated our powers. She made us the defenders of the people, and we were proud to do it.

"But she warned us, too. She cautioned us not to bond too tightly to our comrades. She said trust was necessary among us, but we should avoid building relations that would only be painful if severed, if lost in battle. Young as we were, we wanted to obey the Lady, but we didn't know any better, either. Some people, like Xiu, who keeps me here, I never got along with, but…"

"You met someone?"

Tilaka smiled. "I never knew her true name. We take names to go by in battle. In your language, you'd call her the Crow."

"And you weren't supposed to make friends."

"No, but I couldn't help myself. She defended me from Xiu when he stole my supper. She sparred with me when I fell behind in workout. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't have passed the trials to be a Guardsman. She helped me; she didn't have to." He took to his feet, bracing himself on the stone wall. "I wanted to thank her. I started telling her things about my other life, even though it was forbidden. How I milled grain for my two little sisters, how I worried that, without me, they might starve in the winter. I told her my true name, Tilaka." He blushed. "I showed her my body—the body I was born with."

Ranma gawked. "Um, come again?"

"We showed each other our bodies. We showed each other everything."

"But you were twelve!"

Tilaka cocked his head, puzzled.

"You know what? Never mind. Just move on from the showing bodies thing, okay?"

"But I tempted her."

"Oh no, just stop!"

"That was my offense."

Ranma blinked. "Your 'offense'?"

"That's what woke the Sieve," said Tilaka. "What Crow and I shared that night, by the sacred spring. What we did was forbidden, but I didn't care. I tempted her, and the depth of that transgression roused the Sieve from slumber. I was the one at fault. That's why I had to take over. They couldn't patch the last Sieve."

"So you took his place."

"It could've been Crow instead, but I willingly took up the burden. Still, the humiliation, the shame of it—Crow killed herself over it. I murdered her, my friend, for what I couldn't bear not to have. That is my sin, and that's why I bear this duty, day after day. I won't complain when the priests come to patch my memory. It's my fault. My perversion woke the Sieve before me."

"And that's why you want to keep doing this, but you can't," said Ranma.

"No. A few weeks ago, I felt something miraculous and incredible." Tilaka climbed to his feet. "Come with me, Outsider. Come by the window."

Ranma followed diligently, peering over Tilaka's shoulder. The Sieve opened the metal flap to a view of the forested mountain in the sunset.

"Usually, I only awaken and tend to my own needs at night, when everyone but a few channelers is asleep. That time, though, it was daylight. From a mountain to the east, I felt something. I felt fire."

Squinting, Ranma looked on the horizon. Was he saying Jusenkyō was out there?

"It was truly a magnificent feeling! I wanted to embrace it, but by the time I'd come to the window to try to focus on it, it was gone. The fires had gone out, and all that energy swept away from me, like floodwaters receding into an overflowing river. I tried to sleep again, to meditate, to quiet the energies I felt there, but one last wave came to me, something profound, intense. I couldn't suppress it! I couldn't make it die and ebb away! It was…" Tilaka shuddered. Bracing himself on the windowsill, he wiped a tear from his eyes. "I'm sorry. I don't have the words. Not even in our language; I don't have the words."

What could that have been? Saffron's rebirth? The fires went out, and then they came back in one last outburst, right?

No, that couldn't be. Tilaka was crying, yes, but it was in happiness, awe, and wonder.

"It was a good feeling?" asked Ranma.

Tilaka nodded.

"But I thought you were just supposed to keep people from going crazy with power," said Ranma. "What do good feelings have to do with that?"

"Any strong feeling can lead to powerful magic. Let me show you." Tilaka left the curtain, letting the soft daylight from the valley shine in. "Being Sieve means you deaden the ripples that move us," he said, sitting by the fire once more. "But that's not your only power. You can add to them, make them bigger. It's not something I usually do. Anyone else, anyone in the tribe, would understand why."

_Well, I'm not part of your tribe, so I don't understand._

But strangely, instead of confusion and bewilderment taking hold of him, warmth and bliss crept over Ranma's beating heart. His mind drifted to memories of simpler moments, to times not of mere complacency but of joy and happiness. When, before his battle with Kumon Ryu, Akane took him by the hand and urged him to fight his best. When he leapt from the maw of the eight-headed serpent, she promised they'd go home together. Though he couldn't confess to her on the way back, he had to admit those feelings, at least to himself, that he liked when she was around, that he enjoyed having her near.

"It's interesting when we have a visitor," said Tilaka. "They know these energies so much better than we do. It's a unique challenge, but I don't regret it. I don't regret it at all."

Regret. On the path home from Ryūgenzawa, he regretted not telling her how he felt, but it was inevitable. Making her cry was inevitable. Playing with her heart over what, some stupid battle suit? He couldn't help it. It wasn't that her soul was fragile; it was that he understood, without realizing, exactly what would pierce it, what would shatter it like window glass. Gods only knew how many times he insulted her body—her bust, her figure—when he should cherish it instead. The warmth of her next to him was a fruit he hardly deserved. It'd be so easy if she said she liked someone else. Then he wouldn't need to tease her. He could let go, but as it was, he held on. Even when she refused him, sent him away to this place, he held on…

_Why?_

He rubbed his sleeve over his eyes; this was no time for such sadness, no place to mourn his mistakes! _Geez,_ he thought, _I'm almost crying, and for what? Why do I feel this way?_

"Do you understand now?" Tilaka shook, tears streaming down his face. "Or do you need more?"

Ranma's skin tingled. His hairs stood on end. "You're doing this," he said. "How? Why?"

"Sometimes, I just want to know these energies better," said Tilaka. "What I felt that day, it touched me. It woke me when I've been Sieve for so long. Maybe that's why I can't be Sieve anymore—not because I can't be, but because I don't _want_ to be. I gave in to temptation, then and now." He met Ranma's gaze. "I feel what you feel, and I want more."

Anger and hatred pumped through his veins. Ranma balled his fists. He stomped about the fire. This kid was violating him; there was no other way about it, yet Ranma felt rage only toward himself. Disgust for his cruelties to Akane. Loathing for not being the man she wanted him to be. He let her down. He almost let her die to Saffron. It was only luck that she survived; he had nothing to do with saving her! Nothing!

He yanked Tilaka to his feet. "Stop it, damn you! I didn't ask for this!"

The boy thrashed in his grip, delirious. Like an addict on a rush, his face contorted with pleasure and pain.

"Dammit, is this what it's all about? You want to make me _angry_?"

The boy's eyes focused, a wicked grin on his face.

"Well, kid," said Ranma, shaking, "you got it."

BAM! Ranma clocked Tilaka, decking him to the floor. The boy collapsed, falling like a puppet with its strings cut, and Ranma, for his part, stood still, panting. Adrenaline and mixed emotions gave way to cold sweat and a level head.

"Oh man." He rolled Tilaka over, pressing his his fingers to the boy's neck. "What have I done?"

The door to the Sieve's chambers slammed on its hinges, and the Captain stood in the doorway, staring at the scene before her in horror. "What have you done, Outsider? I asked you to show him compassion, and this is what you do?"

Ranma backed away from Tilaka, getting out of the way so the light from the window would fall on his face again. That boy had stirred something inside him. He touched Ranma's mind—his heart—and brought out things Ranma would've preferred to leave buried and forget. That was the Sieve's power.

The power he'd used every day, to keep atrocities from happening whenever a Sorcerer grew heated and uncontrollable. It wasn't a spike in magic that he was meant to smooth out. Why had Prince Bailu turned a whole army to ash? It was out of anger and despair and regret. That was what the Sieve would bring out and contain in himself. Ranma knew this, for he'd felt Tilaka's touch on his heart.

_That's what they're trying to do. This isn't about their powers at all! They took this kid and made him Sieve, and why? Because he had an adolescent crush on a girl? They'd give up everything for their precious magic. They'd make themselves into soulless, unfeeling monsters._

Ranma slid to the floor of the Sieve's chambers, stunned and horrified, while the Captain tended to Tilaka, checking that he was still alive.

_I've got to get out of here; someone has to know what these people are doing. They're practically mutilating themselves, and they expect me to help them do it?_

He balled his hand into a fist.

_No way. No way in hell. I'll tear this tower apart with my bare hands before it comes to that._

#

A pair of guards from outside the room came in to tend to Tilaka while the Captain held Ranma in the adjacent hallway, her grip on his arm steely like a metal clamp. After a fashion, one of the guards went downstairs, fetching the Captain's second, Xiu, who bore a displeased snarl upon being summoned to this mess.

"There must be more guards!" he shouted, thick eyebrows quavering with every word he spat out. "In this time most of all, the protection of the Sieve must be impenetrable! Get me some priests to tend to the Sieve! And you two!" He pointed out the men who'd stood watch before. "The Captain is _never_ to see the Sieve! Understand? Never! That is _not_ once every thousand days! Never!"

"But sir," said one of the men, "the Captain did not go into the room with him. She only observed—"

"I'm not interested in your excuses!"

"You tell 'em, Xiu," said Ranma. "Choke their asses with your magic voodoo powers. It really worked wonders for a guy I know. He wears a black helmet."

Xiu glared. He marched up to Ranma and pointed the tip of his staff under Ranma's chin. "You are an outsider; I expect nothing from you." He turned the staff to point to the Captain instead. "You, however—you knew it was your responsibility not to contact the Sieve, yet you did so anyway! You have failed in your duty, Captain, and I will make sure the Lady hears of it!"

Batting Xiu's staff away, the Captain stared him down. "It is not your place to lecture me. Do your duty, and I will do mine. If you have nothing else to report to me, I will see the outsider back to her hut."

"To assault the Sieve is blasphemy, yet you treat it like a slight or inconvenience. I can think of no greater show of weakness than that!"

"I will deal with the Outsider as I see fit," said the Captain, "and I don't need _my_ second to tell me that. The Lady has appointed me to this post."

Xiu scoffed. "And the Lady would never cater to her favorite or make an error in judgment, would she."

"You question the Lady?"

Stiffening, Xiu must've sensed the dangerous territory he was treading into. "I have nothing more to report, _Captain_," he said with a sneer.

Nodding, Captain Wuya took Ranma by the arm and escorted him to the central staircase of the tower for a long journey down. It was a spiral stair with a large, circular beam in the middle, preventing anyone or anything from falling down an unimaginable height. The various levels of the tower featured a series of identical rooms, all with doorways but no doors, and members of the Sorcerer Guard to stand watch at each floor. Ranma saw no one on those middle levels—his view being too obstructed to see more than a little of each—but he heard much. Water trickled over stone, and faint, resonating tones reverberated through the staircase. It wasn't music—it had no sense of rhythm or time. It was just a steady collection of harmonious tones, like a chord sustained on an organ.

Ranma didn't understand what he was hearing, but he welcomed the chance for a moment of tranquility. Meeting the Sieve had left something empty inside him—or maybe, it was where he'd walled off all the things he didn't want to think about. They were memories and feelings no one else had a right to bring up and rummage through. Tilaka was like a burglar, going through the desk draws and filing cabinets of his mind for juicy documents or scandalous photos, and no matter how he tried to protect himself, Ranma didn't have a key to shut the boy out. Being a martial artist, he did what came naturally to protect himself, even if the threat to him wasn't to his body.

_Knowing how messed up that kid is, it had to be only a matter of time before he did something worse. Slap me with a doctorate and call me Algernon. That's what that Sieve of theirs could do to me. No thanks._

At his side, the Captain said nothing, but her grip on Ranma's arm was strong—strong enough to leave a bruise, Ranma figured, so he tried to lighten the mood.

"You know, I've had girls try to keep a tight hold on me before. Usually I try to get away as fast as I can, but I guess for you I'll have to make an exception."

WHAM! Ranma's head banged against the stone wall of the stairwell, and the Captain pressed her staff across his neck, pressuring his throat.

"You know, you really need to work on your sense of humor," said Ranma. "You don't know how to take a joke."

"You think this is an occasion to laugh about?" cried Wuya. "I asked you to be gentle with Tilaka, and you repaid me by striking him!"

Ranma shoved her aside, freeing himself from her staff. He rubbed his throat. "Don't talk to me about what's right and wrong. I didn't sign up for any of this bullshit. I saved your life, and the thanks I get is what—the pleasure of being mentally violated by a pale, skinny kid who's been locked in the same room for years? You tell me how there's anything right about that."

The Captain eased off, hesitating. "It is not right, but it is necessary. It may be painful for Tilaka, but it is done for the good of the village. Nothing can ever be done to repay him for his sacrifice, but what we can do is ensure that he never needs to be Sieve again. That is why we need your help, Outsider. That is why _he_ needs your help."

What a passionate plea from this girl—one who hardly showed anything other than irritation and stoicism, except when it came to this Tilaka.

"Captain," said Ranma, "what is your name?"

She eyed him cautiously. "You know my name. I am Wuya, Captain of the Guard."

"And what does it mean?"

"I don't see what that has to do with—"

"It means _crow_, doesn't it?"

The Captain said nothing.

"It does, doesn't it?" Ranma pressed. "Why else would Xiu be so pissed you saw that kid? Because it was you! You're the one Tilaka was with at the spring! It could've been either one of you, but you stuck him with it, and here you are, big and lofty 'Captain of the Guard,' right? He thinks you're dead! He thinks you killed yourself; is that how you convinced him to do what he does? Is that how you got him depressed enough to make himself a black hole, a cesspit for all the dirty things that you'd be thinking about if it weren't for him?"

"That was not my choice!" Wuya shouted back. "The Lady and the Sieve before Tilaka chose. I would've done it. I _begged_ the Lady to take me instead, but she refused. She appointed me Captain instead. Do you know what she said to me that day? She said, 'You who know sin are in the best position to defend us against it. You know the dangers our darkest drives pose.' "

"Some punishment, being tapped as Captain while your lover is being tortured in a dark room."

"I won't claim to have suffered the way Tilaka has suffered, but I have watched him, every day, knowing that I could not tell him I was still alive, and with the positions I hold, I have tried to do right, to do my duty. Xiu would have you suffer at my hand for what you have done."

"Yeah, well, he sounds like a complete moron," said Ranma.

The Captain huffed. "I am not fond of him either, and he does not understand debts." She faced Ranma, tapping her staff once on the stairs. "You did me a favor, and I betrayed you. I asked you a favor, and you have betrayed me. There is nothing more between us now."

"Oh yeah, saving a life against punching a kid out who was mind-raping me. We're totally even."

"Then we have an understanding."

"Yeah, I understand you perfectly. You're such a coward you keep going along with something you know is bullshit. If that's how you treat a 'friend'—"

He snatched a needle from the Captain's belt and plunged it into her neck.

"Then this is how I treat you," he whispered, catching the girl as she went limp. He laid her gently on the steps, not wanting to make a sound. There would be no going back from this deed, but he'd prepared for it. He knew what he had to do and how he could escape that god-forsaken place. He'd heard humming and flowing water. The potter in the bazaar had told him of exactly those things. They were what the channelers used to keep themselves focused, and without channelers, there would be no Maze to stop his escape. The channelers were in the tower, and Ranma would hunt them down if he had to.

To that end, he tip-toed up the stairs, for stealth was his only ally. He stole the oil lamps on the walls and placed them one at a time on the steps, as far in each corner as possible to minimize their light. Darkness could help him, but buying it had a price. The guards above began to chatter, and with a staff in hand, one of the Sorcerers crept downstairs, into the darkness.

And Ranma charged up the steps to deliver the first blow. He bowled the Sorcerer over head-first, slamming him into the steps.

BANG! A fireball exploded on the ceiling, lighting up the stair, and the heat of the flames singed the back of Ranma's neck. Ranma had dealt with a human flamethrower before, though, and being on top of such a man wasn't his favorite position. Ranma wrestled with the Sorcerer, choking the man from behind with his arm.

"I want you to lie still and count backwards from ten, all right?" said Ranma. "Say it with me now. 'Ten, nine, eight…' "

Streaks of flame zipped by Ranma's ears as the Sorcerer flailed.

_It never is _that _easy,_ thought Ranma, but within seconds, the Sorcerer was out, and Ranma rolled his body down the stairs for good measure. Just in the nick of time, too, for the Sorcerer's partner stormed down the steps. The tower rattled, and cracks formed across the stairs.

Ranma jumped, kicking off the inside wall of the staircase, and a section of the stairs broke off, falling to three levels below. Ranma came back to his feet behind the Sorcerer and kicked the man sharply in the knee.

WHAM! The outside wall broke off and shoved Ranma against the center beam. He shook off the impact, staggering, and ducked a swipe of a staff.

"I don't have time for this!" Ranma grabbed the staff with both hands, pulled the Sorcerer in, and headbutted him. The stunned Sorcerer wavered on his feet, and a single kick to his chest sent him tumbling down the broken steps to the part of the spiral below.

Shouts resonated through the tower; Ranma hadn't exactly been subtle. Knowing time was short, he dashed up the stairs until the humming of the channelers grew loud and pronounced. He jogged through an unguarded doorway and navigated a maze of narrow passages, but as he ran, the channelers' magic chord morphed and changed. One part at a time, it went from strong and resonant to somber and low. If they thought they could hide by changing their music, they were sadly wrong. Ranma had two good ears. All he had to do was follow the gradient in their magic chord. With each step, the sound grew louder, and he could make out the tiny inconsistencies in how the pitches matched each other—vibrato in one voice, a slight defect of pitch in another. Ranma traced the source back to a single square room, and he barged through the door to find…

"A fountain?"

The room was empty, save for a set of concentric, circular basins, each built on top of the next, and from a narrow fountainhead, water spewed forth, forming a fine dome that split up into droplets on the way down.

"Oh, I get it," said Ranma. "The fountain looks like the tower itself. That's creative."

But where were the channelers? Their voices surrounded him, yet Ranma saw nothing.

_It's just a trick of the mind._

Ranma paced about the room, listening as closely as he could. They had to still be in that room. Ranma would've heard if they'd left, unless the sound was an illusion, too. No, if that were the case, why let him hear anything at all? The sound was how they kept each other focused; they needed it to conjure any big spell as a group. They'd changed the spell to hide from him, but all Ranma had to do was break their concentration.

Even if he couldn't see them, they had to be close. Ranma tensed his leg muscles and ran in one direction as fast as he could. He careened through invisible bodies, bringing them to light by the flames of hanging oil lamps. The channelers' chord wavered and broke down. They popped into existence around him and scattered, and while some of them leaked through the doorway to the rest of the tower, Ranma scampered over block the rest from escaping.

"No you don't," said Ranma. "I can't allow you to leave and join the rest of your guys to just start humming again."

The remaining channelers—around a dozen in number—joined hands and backed away from Ranma. Pale and clothed in brown rags, they were pathetic and frightened. One dared to run for his life, and Ranma manhandled him with a couple of well-placed punches to the gut. The ease with which he set the man to the floor put a pit in Ranma's stomach.

_I'm going to have to do this with every one of these people. Fantastic. Weak people who can't fight worth a damn, and I have to make sure they can't concentrate or hum a tune even when I'm gone._

But it was necessary, and he could see no other way around it. He balled both his fists and stalked toward to the group of channelers.

"No, no, please!" said one, a woman with short, dark hair. "Please, Japanese outsider. You are Japanese, yes? You don't need to hurt us; please, don't, we beg you!"

"What are you going to do—promise me you won't start channeling that spell again when I'm gone?"

"You can douse us with the water," said the woman, pointing out the fountain. "We won't be able to maintain the Maze then."

"Why? What does the water do?"

"It makes our magic weaker."

Shouts in Chinese echoed through the halls. The Sorcerer Guard had to be onto him as a whole by then, and any of them left in the tower would soon come after him. "Fine," said Ranma, "douse yourselves, or we do this the hard way. Your choice!"

The channelers gathered by the fountain, cupping their hands to scoop up water while Ranma went to the outside wall. A narrow window opened up to the night beyond. The best he could hope for was that he'd distracted enough channelers to weaken the Maze, even if he hadn't gotten all of them, even if some still tried to maintain the spell. He climbed through the window, and—

KA-PAM!

The wall exploded, blowing inwards and showering Ranma in a pile of rubble. He fell back on his shoulder and scrambled back to his feet. From outside, six Guardsmen floated through the breach in the wall, and even more rushed in by the doorway. They pulled the channelers away from the fountain, rushing the helpless spellcasters to the to the rest of the tower, and Ranma, still woozy on his feet from the sudden blast, could only watch them go. It was pointless to try to stop them; he'd only managed to catch a small fraction of them all.

And he no longer cared. They were going to make life painful for him; it seemed only fair to return the favor—or even to pay it back ten times over. He clenched his fist and faced the Sorcerers by the breach in the wall with only mayhem and fury in his eyes.

"Enough!"

From the doorway, the woman in white robes with jade trimming glided into the room, her footsteps smooth and steady. Sindoor stepped in front of her Guardsmen, watching Ranma with her icy gaze.

"That's quite enough, Saotome Ranma," she said. "We have endeavored to treat you with respect, but our needs are paramount. Desist, or we will use all necessary force to subdue you."

"You do that," said Ranma. "You talk about respect, but I know your dirty little secret, Sindoor! I know who and what the Sieve is!"

She smiled to herself, amused. "If that is all you know, then you haven't even begun to understand who and what we are." She approached Ranma, standing directly before him, and looked down on him past her nose. "Enough of this. I warn you, if you continue to resist, the results could be quite unpleasant."

_Yeah, I'm sure they will be. For you._ Ranma slammed his fist against her breastbone, and the Lady flew backward, banging her head on the wall.

"Kill the Outsider!" cried a voice. "She's assaulted the Lady!"

A lightning bolt zipped past Ranma's face, and a film of ice crept over the floor. Struggling for footing, Ranma slipped and slid toward the doorway. He caught a Sorcerer's staff as it swung to struck him, and on the frictionless surface, he turned its momentum against its owner, spinning on one heel to throw the Sorcerer into his comrades. The Guardsmen fell over like bowling pins.

TISS! A flash of flame burned at his eyes and lit his clothes on fire! Shutting his eyes tightly, Ranma patted at his body wherever he felt heat. When he couldn't see his foes to avoid them, he listened instead. He pushed off the walls, sliding from danger when it neared, but with his eyes watering and stinging, he couldn't see when a hand took hold of his arm and kept him in place.

"The Prince may have taken his own life." Sindoor plucked a hair from Ranma's head and held it out, in front of his face, for him to see even through tearing eyes. "But that doesn't mean the magic he found within him is totally lost."

The strand of hair disintegrated, leaving a fine dust of black ash in the air.

"If you cannot behave yourself, then this is the only fate that you will find."

She would turn him to ash, just as Bailu had ripped the life force from hundreds of men. With just his fists and his wits, Ranma lacked the ability to go toe-to-toe with such a force.

But he could learn. He could learn how to fight them, how to withstand their magic and turn it against them. Then, nothing would keep him caged in that twisted village.

"Well, Saotome Ranma?" the Lady intoned, her fingertip drawing close to his ear, his face.

"Okay, wait!" said Ranma, shying away from her. "You want to get Saffron; I can help you do it. I've been to Mount Phoenix. I know the layout, and I know the people. If you want to get him with as little fighting as possible, I'm your best bet. If you harm me instead, you won't stand a chance. All the Phoenix put together will defend their mountain to the last man. They'll cut you down to size, you'll see."

Sindoor smiled to herself, standing up to loom over Ranma once more with her satisfied grin. "We will see about that. Once the Guard has learned from your experience with the Phoenix, we will see about that."

And so, the Ranma and the Sorcerers reached an accord—one Ranma never intended to uphold. Those people had done nothing to earn his trust, and he would cooperate with them only as long as it bought him time. All that mattered was getting away from these people and their twisted ways.

Even if the Sorcerers and the Phoenix had to go to war to give him the chance.


	3. Pride

**Part One: Ripples**. To claim his cure, Ranma must thwart a tribe of Chinese Sorcerers who have come to Jusenkyō, drawn to the spring ground for reasons of their own.

* * *

**Pride**

_Chapter Three_

For twenty years, the Sorcerers of Qinghai had secluded themselves behind their Maze—an illusion no ordinary man could ever hope to navigate. It acted as a barrier, keeping them safe from anyone who might wish to intrude on their home, but the residents of the village were free to come and go as they wished, whether to hunt game, to forage for berries and nuts, or to journey far and wide by the Lady's command.

It was for this last reason that a procession of hooded figures departed from the Sorcerer village one morning. They were not warriors; they carried no staves as those of the Guard did. They were priests—masters of mending or corrupting flesh and manipulators of the mind. The Lady's head priest was a short, unassuming woman named Henna. Even among the priests she was unique, for she kept her head shaved bare, and she seldom spoke above a whisper.

That morning she led five of her brothers and sisters away from the village. Dark green hooded cloaks helped protect them from the wind and cold, and they carried hefty packs to sustain them on the rest of their journey. But though their departure wasn't forbidden, that didn't mean they weren't watched as they left—and not by their fellow Sorcerers, either. Henna felt the eyes upon her as she led her party. She felt through through the ripples and flows of magic that permeated all things. Though her sense of it was faint and clouded, she halted the group with just a signal from her hand. She closed her eyes, searching their surroundings with her mind. Where a normal man would've dismissed a rustling of branches as an innocent coincidence, Henna saw and sensed more. She turned to one of her subordinates and gave her instructions quietly, as she always did.

"I think there are people watching us," she said, "hiding behind the rocks up the slope. Would you go up there and make sure?"

"How?" asked the man.

"You have my forgiveness. Do what you must."

The man nodded, and he circled behind a tree, taking a canteen with him. The rest of the priests, including Henna, averted their gazes, and after a short time, the only sound that could be heard was that of footsteps around them—footsteps that left light impressions in the dirt without a hint of the man who made them. Leaving the party as sight unseen, the priest headed up the slope, and Henna waved the rest of her party to move forward and pretend all was well. Hopefully, that there were only five priests in line instead of six would confuse their unwelcome guests long enough to find out something about them.

And find out something they did—that the people watching them were not easily fooled. "They're walking among us!" cried a voice. "Shoot, shoot!"

Thud! An arrow lodged in a tree trunk, just one foot away from Henna's head. The priests crouched down, taking cover behind the trees.

"Go back!" Henna hissed to her priests, waving them toward the village.

As four foes rose from the rocks above, climbing down with swords and maces at the ready, Henna and her priests fled back to the safety of the village, knowing that the Maze would protect them even when their own magic could not.

#

"Riverfolk?" asked Ranma. "Never heard of those people."

In her tranquil meditation chambers, Lady Sindoor knelt at the edge of the rectangular pool, listening intently to the trickling water as it flowed in. Behind her stood Ranma and the Captain of the Guard, Wuya, who'd gathered there to hear about the enemy on their doorstep and what steps would be taken to defeat them.

"I admit, I'm uncertain what to call them in your tongue," said Sindoor. "They are a matriarchal people, which isn't uncommon here, but they like to pretend they were first. Still, _Riverfolk_ is our name for them, mostly for their rare skill in controlling water to make for powerful attacks. They are an ancient tribe, and we have feuded with them many times—the last time just twenty years ago."

" 'Just,' you say." Ranma scoffed. "I guess that's short on a geological time scale, but I'm not even twenty years old."

Sindoor chuckled to herself. "Nor is the captain who stands beside you. Years pass quickly in these lands. Still, memories linger. We haven't forgotten how they came to the base of the waterfall and cornered our Captain. I'm sure they haven't forgotten how most of their warriors were turned to ash."

_Ah,_ thought Ranma. _It's those people._

"Very strange that they would be here now," mused Sindoor. "They didn't follow you on the way to the spring ground, did they, Captain?"

"They didn't," said Wuya.

"Curious. They used to watch us very closely, but I'd thought they'd grown tired of such waiting. Well, we shall have to find out for ourselves what the they want. It will not do at all to have outsiders watching us. If the Riverfolk have become friends of the Phoenix in recent years, Saffron will be alerted of our arrival, and that is something I cannot allow. Captain, you will lead this effort. Capture the Riverfolk; find out why they have come. Hopefully, they are merely being wary. The last thing we can afford to do is go to war with them and the Phoenix, too. Once the Riverfolk are ours, we can move forward with the effort to take Saffron. There is no better place to do that than at the spring ground."

Ranma raised an eyebrow. "You want to go back to Jusenkyō? What for?"

"The tunnels and infrastructure of the mountain there make it ideal to house a fighting force," said Sindoor. "If we are being monitored, I would like to establish a presence for the Guard outside the village, and controlling the water that supplies Mount Phoenix may be useful, too. Our attack on Mount Phoenix will come from the spring ground. That is why the Captain here will gather the full force she's been training for this task and take them to the spring ground with any Riverfolk we capture. There is no need to endanger the people of the village in doing so."

The Captain narrowed her eyes but said nothing.

"What about me?" Ranma demanded. "You need me to help train up for this war you're going to fight. If you leave me here, then you're doing all your final preparations without the only person who can tell you about the Phoenix over the last twenty years. That's not smart, if you ask me."

"The Captain and I will take that point under advisement," said Sindoor.

"Uh-huh. Does that mean more in this country than the bureaucratic bullshit it sounds like?"

Sindoor handled Ranma's cutting remark with her characteristic coolness. "Only time will tell," she said. "Now then, you have your instructions. If there is nothing else—"

"My lady," Wuya interrupted, "I must ask something: why did you send priests from the village? Why are they the ones to discover we're being observed?"

This remark spurred a reaction from Sindoor. She turned her head slightly, and in Chinese, she answered the Captain flatly, giving no room for interpretation or questioning.

"Now, leave me," she said. "I must meditate."

The Captain bowed at the waist for Sindoor while Ranma rolled his eyes for a mocking nod. Wuya pulled on Ranma's arm to show him out, but when the stone door to Sindoor's chambers shut itself, he yanked his hand free.

"What was that about?" he demanded. "She sent priests from the village? Without protection?"

Wuya walked past Ranma, saying nothing. She made for the double doors at the entrance to the tower and Sindoor's court, but Ranma stormed after her, insistent.

"Hey! You must think there's something wrong with that, or else you wouldn't have said anything!" He came up beside her and lowered his voice. "Because you know it smells just like the way she keeps your boyfriend locked up in the top of this tower, don't you?"

Flinching, Wuya glanced around, ensuring that no one else had heard Ranma's comment. "She wouldn't say," was her answer.

"You expect me to believe that? If she's going to have you set up a base at Jusenkyō, you're going to be away from Tilaka. Does that really sit well with you?"

"That," said Wuya, "is exactly why I must go, why the Lady must send me. We are not like you, Outsider. We don't revel in pleasures of the mind or flesh. We do what is needed to keep our brethren safe and sane. There is no power in such bonds, only regret."

"You don't believe that," said Ranma. "You don't stand by someone for the better part of ten years watching them suffer if you believe that."

"We do what is required of us," Wuya insisted, "even if we dislike it."

At the edge of tower grounds' topmost ring, Wuya left Ranma to walk among her trainees in the Sorcerer Guard, and Ranma, unamused, squinted his eyes. " 'We do what is required of us.' What a joke. People do whatever they want, Wuya, or whatever other people will let them do."

Of course, these words were wasted on the Captain, who'd long since left him. Still, his comment encapsulated his position in the Sorcerer village all too well. He was trapped between what he wanted to do and what the Sorcerers would permit. Naturally they had no incentive to let him walk free while they thought he was helping them prepare to fight Phoenix people. In turn, Ranma was unwilling to wait for them to assault Mount Phoenix, either, for if they looked for Saffron there as a source of power—the successor to their soul-sucking Sieve—they'd find only a baby instead. If only to torture Ranma for his deception, they'd never let him go then.

The only way out, then, was to fight, but Ranma had tried that, too—coming up short as he'd invaded the tower to neutralize the channelers there, the people who held up the disorienting Maze that surrounded the village. One-on-one, these Sorcerers didn't impress him. They had more holes in their technique than a slice of Swiss cheese, but there were many of them, and any one man could surprise Ranma with an array of magical powers that would slow him down and force him to adapt. He didn't fear their magic, but it took time to fight through wind master, one who'd conjure endless tornadoes to spin Ranma around, and that was one of the more benign possibilities that came to Ranma's mind. He could easily think of some combination of powers that would be much worse to face. In no way did Ranma doubt he could defeat any given Sorcerer—or even five or ten of them—but as soon as he'd get through them, there'd be a dozen more waiting, all willing to buffet and batter him with their vast powers. What a pain.

So over the course of the past week, Ranma had observed the Sorcerers closely, trying to gain some insight into their magic and how to defeat it more efficiently—or better yet, to use it himself. Thus far he'd enjoyed a privileged position to do so. Part of his agreement with Sindoor was to provide knowledge and insight into the Phoenix people and to help oversee the Guard's training. He'd help up that end of the bargain as best he could; he just may have neglected to mention one or two things here and there.

"If you guys want to defeat Saffron, you'll need to understand who and what he is," Ranma had said once to the trainees. "Saffron is an egotistical little man-child who doesn't know his own limits. Now, I don't know what kind of punishment you guys can take, but this?" Ranma held up a rock the size of his head for all to see. "I play table tennis with this. Saffron, on the other hand, can't take a little beating to save his life."

Of course, the Sorcerers believed Saffron to be alive, so luckily for Ranma, this set of facts convinced the Sorcerers to train for two days solid in improving their physical strength—magic-enhanced when necessary, but still the same basic techniques. No doubt brute force could prove useful against the Phoenix, but since the Sorcerers would never face Saffron in battle. They were all wasting their time, but at least it gave Ranma the chance to observe and learn something about Sorcerer magic.

_It's all just ki manipulation,_ he'd realized. _They're moving it around in their bodies to gain power. Maybe they sense it from others, too._

And ki was something he knew how to work with. He'd played with confidence and despair before and turned those emotions into weapons, but they were raw and unfocused, prone to fizzling out with a turn of mood. Sorcerer magic demanded more control. It was likely why they needed a Sieve to keep them steady in the first place.

Regardless, Ranma knew well enough how to turn his emotions into destructive power. What interested him was something more precise. If raw ki could blow up a wall one meter thick and leave nothing behind, what Ranma wanted was the ability to drill through that wall instead and leave no evidence but a tiny pinprick. That's what the Sorcerers could do. They could call down lightning to strike one specific spot and leave the rest of the world untouched, and Wuya's ability to defend herself with her magic shield had made Ranma look silly at times.

But try as he might, Ranma couldn't get the hang of Sorcerer magic. Where even the youngest members of the Guard could shoot jets of flame from their open hands, the most Ranma could do was contort his hand awkwardly, looking like a poor, impotent imitation of Spiderman. Naturally, the Captain and her subordinates had no inclination to help Ranma with these techniques, leaving him to wonder—just what was he supposed to do?

It was a question he pondered every day, and that day was no exception. With this journey back to Jusenkyō looming, there was opportunity—the chance to escape. He desperately needed to take advantage of it. To do that, he retreated to his hut, surrounded by four guards that stood around his straw home tirelessly. With his back to the door, he sat down and concentrated. He focused his efforts on a small pebble. If he should learn anything about Sorcerer magic, it was that they could move objects without touching them. That was undoubtedly useful. But what was the secret? Should he stare at it intently until it withered under his gaze? Should he lose himself in meditation until the round pebble floated all on its own?

In theory, Sorcerer magic—and ki manipulation in general—relied on one's own emotions. Was that the trick? If so, it should've been simple. All he had to do was fixate on how badly he wanted to punch Wuya in the face. It was a satisfying image, to think about giving that ungrateful captain a bloody nose, but the pebble before him was unmoved.

"Figures," said Ranma, drawing in the dirt with his finger. Idly, he traced out a circle around the pebble and sighed. What else could he try? Could he find inspiration in something lofty, something to make him open his mind? Would world peace bring him satisfaction? How about a chocolate parfait?

_A parfait would be nice, considering all I haven't had much to eat out here, but that doesn't do anything special for me._

Maybe the solution was to think of something he really wanted instead.

At a loss, Ranma lay flat on his back, staring at the hut's ceiling. Ultimately, what he wanted was simple—to be cured and to go home. Staying focused on that could only help him in the long run. It'd already been a week since he remembered waking up in that village. Going home was at least as important to him as getting his cure. His hopes for what would happen after that were pretty modest. If each day was dull and boring, it would be an improvement over being a prisoner in a faraway land. The home he'd known for almost a year would do fine. He'd go to school, which could be okay at some points and boring at others. After a while, he'd hardly noticed what happened in classes. He'd just walk to school along the canal road and head back when the day was done, oblivious to everything else around him.

Well, except when Akane—the girl beside him on those walks—would intrude on his thoughts. In particular, Ranma recalled the morning after the failed wedding attempt. For some reason, Akane had the brilliant idea to challenge him to a race. She must've known it was a losing proposition, for she took off through the front gate to the house as soon as he agreed, and when he protested, she shrugged it off. "Are you going to complain or come catch me?" she'd called back to him with a giggle.

He'd caught her all right. Really, she overestimated her own strength and endurance. Being shrunk and dehydrated in the battle with Saffron had taken more out of her than anyone could know. Out of charity, Ranma settled for a draw when Akane's fatigue overcame her, and they'd walked together, side by side, at a more leisurely pace for the rest of the way. Were every day like that, Ranma could be content. Even seeing Akane red in the face from exhaustion yet still able to smile brightly—that was quite a surprise.

But that was weeks ago, and too much had happened since. Ranma forced the memory out of his mind. It would do him no good to reminisce on such things, and the fleeting, momentary wonder in his heart ebbed away, until all he could see was the straw ceiling of the hut and sunlight finding its way through the cracks. None of that mattered while he was still a captive of the Sorcerers, and to revel in memories that way was nothing short of lazy and misguided. He was a man, wasn't he? He was a man on a mission, and he didn't have time to stroll down memory lane looking for something he'd lost.

"You knot up your own ki," said a voice. "That is why you can't perform our magic."

Ranma sat up and glanced at the doorway from the corner of his eye. Stepping inside was a woman in a hooded green cloak. Her head was bald—shaved right to the scalp—and her eyes had a distinctive, silvery hue.

"Who are you?" asked Ranma.

"The Lady sends me," she said quietly. "My name is Henna. I am a priest. The Lady wishes you to know that your plea to accompany the party tomorrow has been accepted. I am to see that you can be properly restrained."

"What does that mean?"

The priest opened her robes, revealing a collection of small, hand-crafted glass vials, each sealed off by string and a leathery covering. She uncapped one of these vials and held it under Ranma's nose. "Please smell this."

"Are you serious?"

"The Lady prefers that you be able to walk for the journey, but if we must, we will carry you unconscious instead."

And if they knocked him out, he'd wake up at Jusenkyō having missed a substantial opportunity to escape. So with a sigh, Ranma wafted the vapors from the vial into his nose. The concoction burned a little, and he turned away, coughing violently. His eyes stung and watered. "Gee," he remarked, "you guys don't kid around."

"No, we don't." The priest held out a twig, and with the tip of her finger, she lit the end of the stick on fire. She gazed into Ranma's eyes, studying his reaction, and blew the fire out when she was done. She went to her robes once more, fetching another vial. Well, if she was going to be so direct about treating Ranma like a lab experiment, the least she could do was humor him.

"How do you do that?" asked Ranma. "Light it on fire, I mean. You said I almost had it?"

"Almost," said the priest, "but I think it's pointless for you to try. Even if you weren't holding all your ki inside you, tangled and knotted, a body like that will always be inefficient at using ki to manipulate the outside world."

_Inefficient my ass. I beat your captain like this._ But Ranma ignored the point. If the priest thought Ranma incapable of using magic, all the better. She would be less on her guard as he probed her about it. "You know I'm cursed?" he asked. "You can get me some hot water then, right?"

"Please sniff."

Sighing, Ranma snorted, hoping the brief exposure could be mitigated by an unproductive breath. His vision clouded for a moment, and his lips went numb and tingled. He shook off the sensation, but Henna must've found it interesting: she took notes on a small scroll, nodding as she watched him. "Yes," she finally answered. "We can all sense it. It is as apparent as the dirt on your face."

Ranma wiped at his cheek idly. "Or as the boobs on my chest. So, about that hot water…?"

"I have nothing on hand to help you. I take it you don't choose this form?"

"Hell no! Why would I _want_ to be a girl? I'm shorter and smaller. I can't take a hit as well. I have to get closer just to strike someone, and that's not even the half of it!"

"I feel the same way," said Henna. "It makes your reflection from your own. It is an unnatural form, resistant to flows of ki."

"So you're saying I can't use your magic?"

"You might, but it will be wasteful and difficult. Your task is to help us defeat the Phoenix. An outsider using magic won't make much of a difference there."

_It won't _help _you people very much, no. I definitely agree with that._ "Still," said Ranma, the sensation in his lips returning, "I'm a student of many arts. Consider me interested."

The priest laughed to herself—a restrained but genuine gesture—and put another vial under Ranma's nose. "I don't think that very wise. We all know how you tried to harm the channelers."

Ranma tightened his chest and pretended to heave, hoping Henna wouldn't notice the deception. Surely even she couldn't expect he'd take this experimentation forever. "Okay, I get it," he said. "You're a priest; you don't do crazy magic the way the Guard does. You don't have to pretend for me. It's not like being a healer and a chemist is a bad thing. You get to work with test tubes—you know, instead of being badass."

Henna frowned at that, and as she secured the third vial with its leathery cover, she knelt in front of Ranma, holding her hands flat, facing each other, and about a foot apart. "One can wield magic directly, and some people do, but most of us find it more useful to use magic to influence the world around us instead. A man must connect his emotions to the world, to use them as a channel, opening himself to the outside. The mistake many beginners make, whether in the Guard or in my priesthood, is that they think ki only exists to be bent to their will. It isn't so."

"So how can you make ki do what you want, then?"

Pursing her lips, Henna considered the question carefully. "How can I say it? You must forget what you want to do with ki at all. You must make the process of connecting your emotions to ki come first and foremost. Consider ice, for example. It is cold, but a man's emotions can be colder. He can draw heat into himself from the air, and then…"

A filament of snowflakes formed between her hands, and it solidified into a thin, narrow icicle. Henna caught the filament before it could fall and gave it to Ranma to feel. Sure enough, it was frozen, and in Ranma's grip it began to melt.

_A connection with the outside world, huh?_ As corny as it sounded, Ranma couldn't deny the power inherent to what the priest had shown him.

When Henna was done exposing Ranma to all manner of hazardous fumes, he meditated again. Cold was something he knew well enough. The so-called "Soul of Ice" was the heart of _Hiryū Shōten Ha_, the Heaven Blast of the Dragon. Manifesting cold ki around him was nothing unusual, then, but could he control it further? Could he confine that cold to a damaging filament or a protective sheet?

He would try. He tried putting away the memories of fighting Saffron with his life and another's line. He buried thoughts of the disastrous wedding that ended with his cure gulped down like cheap sake. And if for one day he could run to school at Akane's side, grateful that she was still alive, he ignored any happiness he might've felt in that moment, too. All his disappointment, anger, and joy faded away until there was little more than a cold heart beating in his chest, and even that slowed down to a dangerously lethargic rhythm.

So insulated from his own thoughts, he pulled in heat from the outside instead. As Henna had done, he held his hands out, side by side, and concentrated on the space between them. Snowflakes winked into existence there, tumbling end over end as they made their way to the ground. Yes, he could use these. He would use them to beat these Sorcerers and make his way home, to show that girl, and anyone else who'd doubted him, how much of a man he could be.

And as quickly as the snowflakes had come, they touched his hands and melted.

Tap-tap. One of the guards outside touched the tip of his staff on the hut wall. "What are you doing, Outsider?" he asked, peering through the doorway.

"Nothing," said Ranma. "Just thinking."

Frowning, the Sorcerer went back to his post, and with an intense, focused look on his face, Ranma tried to recapture that feeling—or lack thereof—again. All night, Ranma practiced this brand of ice magic, keeping his efforts hidden from prying eyes by turning his back to the hut's doorway, so he could form all the ice he wanted from the air unobserved. The results were promising—Ranma could conjure films of ice on the ground and even reproduce the filament that Henna had shown him easily enough—but something was holding him back. Without a picture of what he wanted to do with ice, how could he effectively manipulate it? What Henna said didn't make sense.

And until he could figure it out, he couldn't rely on this magic to give him a clear-cut advantage. At best, Ranma could hope to surprise a Sorcerer he fought, relying more on such powers being unexpected than anything else.

#

An hour before dawn, the Guard came to take Ranma, flanked by a half-dozen priests, including the soft-spoken Henna. This time, she didn't play around with a set of vials for Ranma to try. With leathery gloves to protect herself, she applied an oily balm to Ranma's nose and upper lip—a foul-smelling concoction that put Ranma in a haze, and try as he might, the mixture wouldn't rub off. The vapors made the light of the morning sun brighter, and the calls of songbirds in the morning warped into shrill, piercing shrieks. All through his head there was a pulsing, intense pain that made it difficult to see straight or think.

_Great, just what I need—a migraine headache when we're about to hike to Jusenkyō._

Despite Ranma's condition, the Sorcerers took no chances, keeping him chained up and surrounded by a group of four Guardsmen. The caravan met on the tower grounds by the base of the waterfall. All told, there were around thirty Sorcerers of the Guard, six priests, and fifteen channelers—who were kept far, far away from Ranma. Wuya called this group just the first wave, at that. More Guardsmen would be sent to Jusenkyō to prepare, with food and supplies to last until the Sorcerers went to war. For the moment, however, the party would pursue its first goal—to draw out the mysterious Riverfolk, wherever they were hiding.

_These Riverfolk might be my best shot,_ thought Ranma, wincing even to concentrate that much. _An enemy of the Sorcerers is a friend of mine. Hopefully these Riverfolk don't think I'm in league with Sindoor. It's not like I have a record of making friends with Chinese tribes, after all._

The Sorcerer party set out just after dawn. The channelers took the lead in the group, and as part of the Sorcerers' deception, they'd dressed the channelers to look like Guardsmen, complete with black tunics and battle staves. Sure, anyone with a keen, discriminating eye could tell them apart from the real warriors—just the way they carried themselves was off, and they walked with linked hands. Still, Ranma thought it an ingenious move not to paint a target on their backs, like the priests had with their conspicuous green cloaks.

After about half an hour of hiking—it felt like days to Ranma's foggy mind, but he knew it couldn't have been that long—Captain Wuya moved up from the middle of the caravan, making contact with the head channeler, and even from a distance, Ranma's hyper-sensitive hearing picked up on the sequence of tones the channelers hummed, forming a resonant major chord. Though his eyes stung and ached, Ranma glanced about the forest, trying to catch sight of these Riverfolk. At some point, these tribal people would have to figure out they'd been trapped, and either they'd surrender—not likely—or they'd fight back. If Ranma knew where they were coming from, at least he could get out of the line of fire.

Thud! An arrow struck one of Ranma's guards in the chest, and the man keeled over into the arms of his companions, dragging Ranma off his feet as the shackle chains pulled taut.

_Oh hell. Here we go!_

Splayed out on his back, Ranma fought the throbbing pain in his head, trying to get upright, but he was tangled in shackles and chains. There was shouting—painful shouting that made his ears ache. The Riverfolk attacked from the east, using the rising sun to attack from the shelter of its light. They took cover behind trees, firing arrows into the unprotected caravan. The Captain raised her golden shell of ki, protecting the channelers at the front; for the rest of them, the priests ran for cover, and the Sorcerers of the Guard fought back with a slew of elemental powers. Lightning bolts shattered tree trunks where the Riverfolk archers shot from, and the earth itself moved, forming a colossal landslide to bury them.

Yet still, despite the unholy levels of destruction the Sorcerers brought upon them, the Riverfolk persisted. They even dared to stand toe-to-toe against the Guard. A girl with a pair of massive steel balls on a rope—a meteor hammer—charged into the caravan, dazzling the Sorcerers with awesome combination strikes. She threw one of the spheres as a projectile weapon, collecting it thanks to the tension in her rope. Then, she swung both balls overhead, swinging them down with deadly force. She crushed or beat three Sorcerers before the lot of them had a chance to catch up to her. A high-powered gust of wind blew out Ranma's ears and shot the girl with the meteor hammer away like a human cannonball.

But she wasn't the only one. An intrepid archer watched her back as she fell. Daring to step into close range, he ran from tree to tree for cover, zipping arrows into the fray. An arrow found another of Ranma's guards, giving him the dead weight of two men to fight against, and a second shot whizzed past Ranma's head, grazing the end of his pigtail.

_Oh great, they're trying to kill me, too!_

And despite the pounding in his head, Ranma wasn't going to let even a migraine headache get him killed. He kicked and yanked at his shackles, bringing the rest of his guards down. With his bare hands, he twisted the chain links, and the metal sheared, snapping off. Grabbing two of the broken chains, he spun on his feet, picking the wounded Sorcerers up off the ground. He hurled the bodies at the archer, shattering two trees with the force of the blows.

The Riverfolk archer shielded his eyes from the flying debris, and that gave Ranma a chance. He pounced on the archer, and with the iron shackles around his wrists, he punched and bashed at the man's face. "If you want to kill me, you'll have to try harder than that!" he cried.

"Stop!" The archer vainly tried to cover his face, refusing to resist. "Stop, please!"

Why? Just because he could speak Japanese? "Give me a reason!" shouted Ranma.

"Because we're trying to save you, Saotome Ranma!"

Ranma stayed his hand for a moment, taking the archer by his collar instead. "Why would some Riverfolk people I've never heard of want to save me? Why would they even know my name?"

"Riverfolk?" echoed the archer. "That's not what we call ourselves. We're Amazons."

Amazons? Shampoo's people? Of course, how could he not see it before? The archer's outfit was almost a carbon copy of Mousse's usual attire. And here he'd bruised and scratched up this Amazon archer for nothing.

"How do we break through their illusion?" asked the archer. "Do you know? We can't escape otherwise!"

The secret was the channelers, which the Captain had well protected. Ranma looked over the scene of the battle. The girl with the meteor hammer had been cornered, surrounded by half a dozen Sorcerers. Further off, Amazons struggled to climb out of the torrent of earth and dirt that had overwhelmed them.

"It's too late," muttered Ranma. "You're not getting out of here, either. Whatever else you tell them, you don't know anything about Saffron, or if you do know something, he's still alive. You got me?"

The archer nodded.

"Good. Sorry about this." Ranma slugged the archer once more for good measure, just as a set of Guardsmen came up from the middle of the caravan and pulled Ranma away. The archer struggled—a token gesture of resistance—but the Sorcerers got the Riverfolk prisoners they wanted. Ranma just had to hope the Amazons could hold their tongues.

#

The Sorcerers made off with six Amazon prisoners, preferring to sedate all of them while the caravan moved on. Ironically, Ranma's effort to capture the archer had earned him a little credit with the Captain, and since the Sorcerers had no more shackles to bind him, they were content to leave Ranma unrestrained for the rest of the trip. Alas, Ranma couldn't think of how to take advantage of this freedom. The fight had taken a lot out of him. As far as he could see, he was walking through soup, and more than once he stepped on a tree root or divot in the earth that tweaked his ankle or caused him to stumble. In truth, he had much more on his mind than how to keep his footing on the rough terrain of the Tibetan Plateau.

_Amazons, here?_

As nice as it was to have allies (if he believed that they were saving him out of the goodness of their hearts, instead of as leverage to make him marry Shampoo), Ranma found this development potentially very dangerous. The Amazons knew him. They knew his name, and Shampoo had been there to see what really happened to Saffron. If the Sorcerers managed to coax the truth about Saffron from just one Amazon prisoner, it could get them all killed.

For this reason, when the caravan stopped for the night, Ranma urged Wuya to keep the Amazons sedated until they reached Jusenkyō. The time to interrogate them could wait until they were secure, after all, and while it cost Ranma a chance to try to break free and take out the channelers overnight, he felt he had to be pragmatic about it: while he was alive, he could always try to escape. If the truth came out, he would be out of chances, and the moment they confronted him about it, he'd have to fight for his life no matter how bad the odds were.

It was by the middle of the afternoon the second day that the party reached Jusenkyō, and the Sorcerers wasted no time establishing their presence. High above the springs, the Sorcerers occupied the tunnels and passages of Mount Kensei. Out of caution, Ranma was kept at the base of the mountain while the channelers were shown inside—a costly loss in that Ranma would have no idea where they were hiding. Still, he had other things to worry about.

Like with the channelers, the Amazons were shown into the mountain, and Ranma insisted on being present to observe the interrogation. Gods only knew what would happen if the Sorcerers questioned the Amazons with him elsewhere and they came up with the wrong answers. Grudgingly, Captain Wuya granted this request, and through the back door at the base of the mountain, Ranma was shown inside. The Sorcerers led Ranma past a gaping chasm, traversing the gap on a set of logs. There lay a series of round cells in the walls, each secured by a grate of vertical bars. By the light of a torch, Ranma glimpsed the occupants—the archer he'd beaten up and the brave, short-haired girl with the meteor hammer.

"There were others," said Ranma. "Where did they go?"

"The priests have them," explained Captain Wuya. "They will use their own methods."

Ranma grimaced at that. Henna had given him some unknowing help, but could he count on them all being clueless and ineffective?

The Captain tapped her staff on the bars, drawing the Amazons' attention. "Explain yourselves, Riverfolk. What are your intentions in spying on us?"

The archer stepped up. "What are _your_ intentions, Sorcerer? Where have you taken us? Why leave your protective bubble after so long? Did you think we wouldn't notice that you'd left? We've been watching. We've always been watching. Not many people would forget losing hundreds of their brothers to the likes of you!"

With her open hand, the Captain shot a beam of ki through the archer, who keeled over, crying out in pain. The girl who'd used the meteor hammer ran to his side, but he kept her at bay, holding his own.

"What are you doing here?" the Captain asked again.

Struggling to his feet, the archer glared daggers at Wuya, but he answered plainly. "At any time, there are eight scouting parties around your village. We rotate, spending two weeks in the wild and two weeks back in the village. We just took over for the last group about five days ago."

"A lie," said Wuya. "Your people gave up on standing vigil for our return years ago."

"No, we only just eluded you until now."

Wuya narrowed her eyes—and in fairness, Ranma thought it sounded pretty thin, too—but she didn't press the point. "Tell me about the state of things in the world. What of the People's Republic?"

"They're having a border conflict with the Soviets, like they've been having for the last twenty years. Deng is in charge now. Mao died about ten or fifteen years ago. What else do you want to know?"

"About the Tribe of the Restless Dreamers—what of them?"

Ranma raised an eyebrow. What did that have to do with anything? Was it just a junk question to throw the Amazons off?

"Massacred, about six years ago," answered the archer. "As I understand it, the PLA run a communications outpost in the ruins."

"And the Tribe of the Eternal Flame?"

The archer hesitated. "The Phoenix?" he asked, glancing to Ranma. "I'd heard rumors a bird drowned in their spring and made them all cursed. They've been reclusive, rather like you people."

"But they are still led by Saffron?"

Ranma stepped back, sliding out of Wuya's sight. He watched the Amazon archer from the corner of his eye and nodded subtly to give him the proper cue.

"Yes, of course," said the archer. "Who else would they follow?"

It was all Ranma could to let out a relieved breath and not be heard as he did.

"He is mature, then?" Wuya pressed.

The archer looked to Ranma again.

"Sorry, what was the question?" asked Ranma.

Wuya turned her head halfway, eyeing him curiously. "I asked the Riverfolk if Saffron is mature. _You_ shouldn't be concerned with answering."

Ranma nodded. "Of course, of course. I'm not trying to do anything, honest."

"Naturally Saffron is mature," said the archer, and though Ranma feared his tone betrayed a bit of hesitation and uncertainty, Wuya didn't seem to pick up on it.

"This was recent? Or did the transformation occur some time ago?"

Ranma froze. Just how was he supposed to help the Amazon answer that? One finger for first, two for second?

"Just a few weeks ago," answered the archer, to Ranma's relief. "From what I heard, his last incarnation must've fizzled out nine or ten years ago. I'm not quite sure how, though."

"I see." Captain Wuya turned aside, exposing Ranma to the Amazon archer. "Do you know this girl?"

"I'm a guy," Ranma insisted.

"I know of her," said the archer. "She and her panda friend came to our village last year and disrupted the annual martial arts festival. As far as I know, one of our finest warriors was going to follow her to Japan and back to kill her. I only thought to save the girl some trouble by killing her myself, especially for consorting with you Sorcerer scum."

The Captain snorted, making way for Ranma. "You insisted on being here. What are your questions for the Riverfolk?"

"Question? Ah, well, I guess I just want to know why they wanted to kill me," said Ranma. "I mean, really, go after the guy in shackles? Grudge much?"

"You work with Sorcerers, you deserve to die," said the archer. "It's that simple. What are you using her for, Sorcerer? What part does she play in the end of your time in hiding? You think my people won't find out how she fits into your plan?"

Ranma smirked to himself. This archer was really laying it on thick. It showed that he was smart enough to help Ranma sell his position with the Sorcerers, so Ranma decided it was time to try something a little more involved. "Have you seen the Guide and his daughter? I sent the two of them back to Yushu. Don't suppose any of your scouting parties saw the two of them?"

"They did, actually," said the archer. "It took the Guide three days to make it to the city. We didn't make contact with them—it wasn't our concern—but we keep an eye on everything that happens in the basin around the spring ground."

Wuya turned to Ranma. "What happens when this Guide makes it to the city?"

"Beats me," said Ranma. "I just told him and Plum to wait. If they aren't around here now, who knows? I just thought if they'd stayed here after all, they could help me find a spring I'd been looking for. Don't tell me you thought I was trying to help you defeat the Phoenix people."

Scowling, the Captain barked some orders at her men in Chinese, and a contingent of four Guardsmen stood watch by the Amazons' cell while Wuya dragged Ranma back toward the surface, and Ranma didn't mind that in the slightest. He'd found out something useful after all: that he had some clever Amazons for friends and that it was the Guide who called them in, for only that way could they know there were _three_ people in that party—the Guide, Plum, and Kunō. The archer had picked up perfectly on the subtle flaw in his story and played on it beyond all expectations. As long as the priests didn't get any information from their prisoners, Ranma would be in good shape.

After the interrogation, Ranma set out to kill time until nightfall. Ultimately, he wanted to meet with those Amazons and try to come up with some sort of plan. Even three people against the Sorcerers would do better than just him alone, but to get together with them would surely be an irreversible step. He would get no better opportunity. He should be prepared for it.

To that end, he poked his head into the Guard's exercise session that was held in the late afternoon. Following up on what he'd learned from Henna, Ranma encouraged the Guard to practice ice-based techniques, claiming that they would do wonders against the Phoenix people and their wings. He hesitated to give the Sorcerers a real advantage—it _could_ actually prove effective, after all—but it seemed like the best option to give him an edge. Indeed, based on the Guard's proficiency with forming ice walls and weapons out of the stuff, Ranma felt he had a lot to go off of indeed. Though Captain Wuya was naturally wary of giving Ranma any clue how to use their magic, he'd managed to needle out of her something to build off of Henna's advice:

"What these men must understand," Wuya had said, "is that to wield a specific form of magic, they must shut out all other influences. Some people associate fire with anger, and anger is an easy emotion to keep in mind during battle. Ice, on the other hand, can be more difficult because it's more subtle. The best I can tell them is to understand what is in their hearts and let those feelings fade away."

With that in mind, Ranma made some private time later on, sitting on a ledge that overlooked the springs to focus and meditate. Something he wanted to force out of his heart? That was easy. When he fought Saffron over that mountain, with Akane's life ticking away by the second, he knew fear. He knew desperation, and it drove him to rage. He'd killed that arrogant, sneering bird-man, and as he imagined the corpse falling to Earth, he had to wonder—would he know restraint if he met that man again? If he heard Saffron's cackling and laughter, taunting Ranma for his foolishness and threatening Akane's life?

Probably not. He would kill that bastard again and again, and to stare into his own heart and see that darkness unsettled him. What would his mother think of that impulse? Or Akane—had she seen through him to glimpse that damned spot that wouldn't wash out from his soul?

These were the doubts that plagued him, and he scorned himself for even having them. That was not the kind of man he was, but he dealt with those doubts. He confronted them. He bottled them up and forced them away. He made his insides cold, and the world responded to his influence. Ice materialized in his hands, forming a cold, sharp spear. Ranma wasn't one to rely on weapons, preferring to be equally good with his bare hands as any stick, club, or sword, but in countering the Sorcerers' staff attacks, this could do quite nicely.

But would it bring him victory over these Sorcerers? There was only one way to find out. He tapped the spear on the ground, and it cracked and shattered at the slightest touch.

_Dammit._

With that failure, Ranma decided to turn to another option. Doing something wrong with these magics could easily play with his mind (_Or turn me into a burn victim with robotic limbs who has to wear a black helmet to breathe,_ thought Ranma), so he pursued the only other thing that might help him turn the tables on the Sorcerers: the cure to his curse. Being a man again would give him increased reach, durability, power, and speed, never mind that it would preserve his dignity once and for all.

The only problem was that, of the thousand springs, Ranma had absolutely no idea which spring would cure him. How bittersweet it was, to be in that place he'd sought out yet powerless to get what he wanted without a map to show him around or a Guide to point the way. Still, Ranma pursued his cure with all due effort. He went to the edge of the woods around Jusenkyō and drew upon his vast traveling experience to capture animals—squirrels, birds, snakes, and rats. He tossed these beasts into the pools around Jusenkyō, hoping he'd get lucky and find the Drowned Man spring all on his own, but he knew it was a longshot, and maybe the distraction was just better than doing nothing at all. To his disappointment, he found Springs of Drowned Horse, Drowned Alligator, Drowned Two-Headed Hippopotamus with Heat-beam Eyes (Ranma drained three or four pools just trying to put up enough steam between him and this creature to protect himself), but none of them led him to the Spring of Drowned Man. The most interesting result of the whole affair was seeing Sindoor's priests following him into the woods, collecting animals and caging them, too. When Ranma tossed a critter into a pool, the priests watched from afar and jotted down notes on their scrolls. What they could find so interesting Ranma wouldn't guess, and he hoped he'd be well beyond the Sorcerers' grasp before he had a chance to find out.

#

As dusk loomed, Ranma headed for shelter. The safest place to keep him, it seemed, was in the den of the Sorcerer Guard themselves. While the Sorcerers used some tunnels as they were extant, Captain Wuya didn't trust the whole tunnel system. "All these passages are connected to the springs' water supply," she'd observed. "That can be a fitting place to keep prisoners, but I won't expose my people to the chance of contamination."

Ranma couldn't blame her for that, but it complicated his efforts severely. Old and ancient tunnels had secrets—turns and side-passages that no one knew of—but what the Sorcerers designed themselves would have fewer weaknesses.

A group of four Sorcerers escorted Ranma underground, and already, Ranma didn't like what he saw: the first room was a barracks-like open space with no privacy. Sorcerers on both sides lined up on mats to sleep. Ranma was shunted off to the middle of the wide-open room, and the four guards stood with him as he was shown an empty straw mat.

"You're kidding," said Ranma. "Are you guys gonna watch me sleep all night?"

The stoic Sorcerer Guardsmen said nothing, which Ranma took to be a yes. With Sorcerers all over the place, Ranma was hard-pressed to think of a plan that would get him out of that bunker during the night. Wuya had put together a smart plan to keep him caged up, at least while he could be surrounded with so many men.

But in the daytime, that would be another story. The Guard would go outside and continue preparing themselves for the assault on Mount Phoenix. Ranma would be given enough freedom to join them and give Wuya tips and advice on how to beat the Phoenix people. While Wuya's plan could shut him down for an evening, Ranma might be able to make a move during the day.

Yet one big question remained: what would he do then? Say he took down his Sorcerer escort—he was reasonably confident of that, if he could isolate them from other Sorcerers—where would he go? What would he do? Could he search the whole mountain for the channelers? Doubtless there would be guards wherever they were kept. Could he reasonably take them head-on and escape? Perhaps. But he'd been through that before. The channelers were powerful in their own right, enough to slow down any attack.

So as night began to fall with Ranma wide awake and clueless as to how to proceed, he watched the torches in the underground barracks flicker and waver. The Sorcerers were still trying to get settled, placing mats for their comrades to sleep on, bringing food and water into the bunker for protection from the elements, along with other miscellaneous supplies. Maybe Ranma could make a run at their grain. If he could damage their food stores, that would slow down the attack plans pretty dramatically. It would buy some time for him to think of something, but the odds that he could pull that off without getting caught were slim. He needed something more definite.

There were other items the Sorcerers brought into the mountain as well. Amazon weapons—bows, knives, and maces—were walked down the central aisle of the barracks to parts unknown. That made sense. It was better to hold on to your enemies' weapons rather than leave them behind to be picked up and used again. Floating pallets of Amazon backpacks and clothes went past, and Ranma paid them no mind, but something shiny and metallic caught his eye. It had straps like a backpack, but it was made of sturdier stuff, with a rounded wire attacked to its top and a phone handset secured to its side.

_A radio?_

The Amazons didn't strike him as the kind to have developed their own radios, but maybe they borrowed one from somewhere. They did have newspapers, after all. Somewhere in the annals of their periodicals there was a story about Ranma and Shampoo's happy "married life" in Japan that was a travesty of journalism at best. A radio could be used to call for help, and Ranma surely needed that. If the Amazons weren't interested in helping a foreign boy in their lands, they might lift a few fingers to rescue their people who'd been captured by Sorcerers.

With that, Ranma slept lightly, for his mind was already racing with possibilities.

#

He made his move at dawn. The barracks came to life and began to thin out, and Ranma was quick to do the same. "Hey," he told his escort, "I think I'd like to go out and stretch my legs. Busy day today, right?"

The request drew no suspicion, and Ranma led the way back into faint daylight to a ledge outside the bunker's mouth. Far below were the thousand springs of Jusenkyō, the pools still and quiet as the sun started poking over the horizon. Closer, however, was the crater where the Guide's house had once been, where the Phoenix and Dragon Taps lay exposed to the elements.

Ranma studied his Sorcerer escort. Two of the guards stayed close to him, shadowing his every move. Two stayed further back—a sensible strategy, so all four of them couldn't be disabled in one go even if Ranma turned on them. Ranma inched toward the ledge, eyeing the drop. They wouldn't let him get much further from the main camp, and without that distance, it would be hard to go unnoticed.

But it was still only dawn, and the low light could work to his advantage. The Sorcerers may have had the radio, but Ranma needed to communicate with the Amazons. Only two people at Jusenkyō could do that for him, and their prison was straight down.

"Hey," he said, turning to one of the Sorcerers. "Do you see something down there?"

"No," said the Sorcerer.

"Are you sure? Don't want to take a look? I think I see movement."

The Sorcerer held fast, pointing his staff at Ranma warily.

_Everybody thinks they're so smart. Well, did you see this coming?_ Ranma grabbed at the point and flipped the Sorcerer overhead, sending him hurtling down the slope of the ledge.

"I think I see movement now!" cried Ranma. "How about you?"

The other three Sorcerers charged at Ranma, but he jumped off the ledge feet-first, skidding down the steep slope. Ranma expected the Sorcerers to come after him, and indeed, two came flying overhead in pursuit. The third, however, stayed on the ledge to channel magic that—

WHAM! The rock face exploded beneath Ranma, and a pillar-like piece of rock jutted out suddenly, knocking him off his feet. Ranma tumbled out of control, hitting his head and knees on the mountainside, but one good push off, and Ranma gained some elevation, enough to contort his body back into a controlled roll.

He looked up. Where were they? Were they still chasing him? Did they—

TISS! His skin hissed and burned; a bright light bored through his eyelids and set his nerves aflame. Ranma shielded his eyes with his hands and spotted a bright spot in the sky surrounded by shadow—the shadow of a Sorcerer holding his staff.

Ranma climbed to his feet and ran under the ledge, fleeing the light, and made his way into the source of Jusenkyō itself, where the Amazon prisoners lay.

The path back to the Amazons' cells wasn't difficult—a turn here, a turn there. What concerned Ranma more were the guards. With the possibility of Sorcerers right behind him, Ranma couldn't afford to wait and size up the situation. Still, he tried to quiet his aura and his breathing as best he could, just to get an idea of what he might be facing.

The standing watch for the prisoners was somewhat thin. Four Sorcerers stood guard—one at each end of the corridor, two right in front of the Amazons. Hearing nothing behind him, Ranma opted for a subtle approach. He crept up on one of the end guards, swiped a dosed bamboo needle, and stuck him in the neck, catching the man's weight as he fell so no one would hear a sound.

The female guard on the other end of the corridor was more careful, but at least as a woman she was easier to take down through physical means. He lunched at her waist, grabbed both legs, and forced her to the floor. The woman closed her hands around his neck, trying to choke him, and a flare of heat from her hands burned his skin, but Ranma slugged her and slammed her head against the floor, knocking her out cold. He came up cradling his neck, feeling the tender flesh there.

_Damn I hate these guys,_ he thought, wincing.

His takedown of the second guard hadn't been as clean as he'd hoped. The guards by the Amazons' cell stirred, with one of them coming down the hall to investigate.

_Time to see what this magic can do._

Calming himself, Ranma stormed down the corridor to meet his foe. He embraced the rush of adrenaline but didn't let it control him, for all he wanted was to dull the pain of his burns. Everything else he might feel he was numb to. If magic could help him, that was the time for it. He shut all other influences out, and a spear of ice formed in his hands, coming to a deadly point.

_Now I could get to like this._ Eagerly, Ranma lunged and thrust with the spear, but an opposing Sorcerer hit the shaft in the middle with his staff, shattering the ice into pieces in one overhead blow.

"And you people swear by magic, huh?" said Ranma. "Useless. Well, let's do it the old-fashioned way!"

WHAM! He decked the Sorcerer, slugging him in the cheek, and the man staggered, crumpling like a paper cup underfoot.

_Just one more._

ZAP-ZAP-ZAP! Lightning shot through Ranma's body; his muscles spasmed, and his eyes shut reflexively against the brightness. He reached out for a handhold against the wall, and with his arm shielding him from the light, he tried to look down the corridor.

_One last guy, and I can't even see him,_ he thought, struggling. _Hell, I can hardly move. Dammit!_

He tried to fight through the pain, but his muscles spasmed, and the incessant crackling of lightning in his ears was difficult to keep out. The shield bought him a momentary respite; that was all. The last Sorcerer cranked up the energy of his lightning, forcing Ranma back off his feet with a powerful pulse.

CLANK!

Until the Amazon archer kicked off the metal grating of his cell and smashed it—and the Sorcerer Guardsman—into the opposing wall.

"Uhh," groaned Ranma, climbing to his feet. "Thank the gods for competent people in this world!"

The two Amazons trotted down the hall, taking up discarded Sorcerer staves for lack of anything else. "You're as impressive as you were a year ago," said the archer. "Thank you for freeing us."

"Don't thank me yet," said Ranma. "We're not out of here by a longshot. Either of you know how to work a radio?"

"Yes, both of us," said the archer. "Why do you ask?"

"If we ain't getting out of here right now, I want to make damn sure the Sorcerers don't find staying here all that hospitable either. Come on!"

The Amazon archer and warrior, boy and girl, trotted together behind Ranma back toward the tunnel exit, just outside the Phoenix and Dragon, but the way wasn't completely clear. Two more Sorcerers rushed into the breach to oppose them, one wielding that blinding light from his staff, the other pinching off the passageway with protrusions of rock to slow Ranma and the Amazons down.

"Stay back!" said Ranma, throwing an arm out to stop the Amazons. "That light will give you a sunburn if you aren't careful, so—hey!"

But the warrior girl wouldn't listen. She charged straight ahead, turning her face away from the light to keep its blinding glare out of her eyes. Though she wielded an unfamiliar weapon, she twirled and thrust the Sorcerer staff with deadly technique. By feel alone, she dodged the rocky protrusions that threatened to seal off the tunnel altogether, leaping past them with the dexterity of a gymnast on a balance beam. With a flick of her wrist, she swatted away the glowing staff of one of the Sorcerers, and the burning light from the staff-tip ceased. She planted her staff into the ground and used it as leverage for a two-footed kick, sending the other Sorcerer headlong into one of the jutting pillars of rock that had made the tunnel so impassable.

"If only she could listen as well as she fights," mused Ranma, coming out from a corner.

"You'll have to forgive Marula," said the Amazon archer. "She's trained hard to place third in the annual tournament and to master both aerial and ground-based fighting styles, but her interests are quite narrow. I've been trying to get her to change that, but she's too stubborn to put her mind to other things. Knowledge of other cultures, including the Japanese, isn't part of her skills."

Ranma nodded in understanding. "In other words, she may be the first Chinese native I've met this week who _doesn't_ speak Japanese."

"Kumkum!"

The archer shuddered, and he went to the warrior girl's side as she took down the two Sorcerers and stripped them of their possessions. Paralytic needles, knives, battle staves—Marula took them all in a heartbeat. Perhaps she had a little too much experience stripping down defeated foes for their belongings. Either way, Kumkum—as Ranma realized he must be named—took all these weapons eagerly, obedient to Marula's command.

And when his arms were full, Marula pinched him on the ear and left with a stern look on her face.

"What was that for?" asked Ranma.

"Marula may not understand Japanese," said Kumkum, "but she knows when I call her _stubborn_, in any language."

At that, Ranma could nod knowingly. He could definitely commiserate with that.

Ranma and Kumkum followed Marula to the mouth of the tunnel, but the female Amazon held up a hand, telling them to wait. She poked her head out briefly, looking to the sky with concern.

"What is it?" asked Ranma.

Marula looked back, pointed the Sorcerer staff to the sky, and said something in Chinese.

"The Sorcerers are starting to patrol the air," said Kumkum. "It seems unlikely all three of us will be able to escape without being spotted. Do you know where our radio pack is?"

"Back up the slope." Ranma trotted out to the tunnel mouth next to Marula and looked for himself. Sure enough, flying Sorcerers dotted the dawn sky like birds of prey waiting to strike. They wouldn't get out of there easily. "We need a distraction," he concluded.

"What are you suggesting?" asked Kumkum.

"Me?" Ranma scoffed. "I ain't suggesting anything. You want _me_ to be the distraction?"

"It's your idea, isn't it?"

"That doesn't mean I'm going out there and making myself a target! You go be a distraction!"

Kumkum sighed. "I see tales of your heroism aren't understated after all."

"I'm a hero? Since when?"

"My point exactly." Kumkum grabbed a Sorcerer staff with both hands and moved for the tunnel mouth, but Marula pressed a hand to his chest, stopping him. She said a few words in Chinese, which Ranma didn't follow.

"What's the deal?" asked Ranma.

Kumkum looked to Marula and shook his head. "She's—she's saying she'll go herself. She can't understand you, so it's the only thing that makes sense. I'll work the radio while you relay what information you've gathered from the Sorcerers." He pursed his lips and nodded hesitantly. "It's the right thing to do."

Marula touched a hand to Kumkum's and squeezed gently. That was the only goodbye between them: a small gesture of affection, followed by a mutual nod. Then, taking a deep breath, the Amazon warrior bounded into the sunlight and ran as fast as she could, leaving Ranma and Kumkum behind.

Ranma looked to Kumkum, studying the archer's stoic gaze. "Are you and she—?"

"We're family," Kumkum explained. "Cousins, you could say."

Narrowing his eyes, Ranma looked out the tunnel mouth, waiting for Sorcerers to fly by. "Is that right," he said dryly.

"Well, my mother's cousin married Marula's grandfather's youngest brother."

"You call that family?"

"It's a small village. Everyone's family in some way."

Ranma scoffed. "I don't touch people I consider family like that."

"I've heard you're not the touching type, otherwise you and Shampoo would've had children by now."

Ranma glared.

"Well…" Kumkum looked Ranma up and down. "You would have to get out of that body first."

_When this is all done, you and me are gonna have a long chat. Maybe with our fists. But _after _we've dealt with these Sorcerer goons._

While the two of them fought this sophisticated battle of wits, Ranma and Kumkum's chance to reach the radio finally came. A group of Sorcerers soared across the sky and down the slope of the mountain, heading in pursuit of Marula.

"I think that's our cue," said Ranma. "Let's go, Kumquat."

"It's _Kumkum_."

"Close enough."

With Sorcerer forces distracted, Ranma and Kumkum clung to the sheer inner face of the crater that housed the Phoenix and Dragon. They moved slowly but with purpose, working their way around to a path through the crater wall that the Sorcerers had dug out. The way up the mountain was steep and difficult, and at times, both men had to go down on all fours to scale it, which had the benefit of keeping them low to the ground and out of sight as much as possible.

As long as the Sorcerers weren't looking for them specifically, they had a good chance of making it back to the barracks, and indeed, the Sorcerers seemed very distracted. Marula led several Sorcerers down the slope, and given that a tornado was rapidly forming behind Ranma and near the base of the mountain, Ranma felt Marula must've been doing a good job.

If Marula could hold out, they'd have time to get a message through, and Ranma needed to figure out what to say and how to say it. "Okay, Kumkum, listen to me here," said Ranma. "You're gonna call up your people and tell them where we are—at Jusenkyō, right? The Sorcerers have some people here, and they're protected by their magic maze thing. You said you knew about that, right?"

"We tried for years to break through it," said Kumkum, pulling himself up a particularly steep part of the path. "No one ever came back. Do you know where they are?"

"They don't even know where they are. If they're lucky…" Ranma shook off the thought. "But you can stop it if you can get to the channelers. I don't know where Wuya hid them, but they're around here."

Kumkum's eyes weren't on Ranma, however, and his attention certainly wasn't on this information about channelers and illusions. Ranma could practically see Kumkum's eyes following the swirling tornado below them.

"Hey," said Ranma. "Your body's over here; your head can't be down there."

Kumkum nodded grimly, looking back toward the top of the mountain. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't worry. Marula's one of the best warriors of our year, but it's hard not to. She promised my mother she'd bring me back home in one piece. I told her I'd do my best to bring her back alive, too."

"Well, don't worry about that. They like taking people alive, so they can use magic to plant visions in your head, or to make you feel things you shouldn't feel to screw with you. So I don't think they'll go out of their way to kill her."

"That's your idea of a comfort?"

Ranma rolled his eyes. "We're fighting with these guys; ain't no time to be picky about what they give you." He looked up. "This is the last ridge before we get to the bunker they dug out. Stay down."

Kumkum nodded in acknowledgment, and Ranma led the way. Luckily, the entrance to the barracks was totally unguarded. The Sorcerers may have been powerful, but they weren't many. Still, it would just take one to come by and ruin Ranma's day. He wasn't afraid of what they could do to him, or to the Amazon archer Kumkum, but a radio was a fragile piece of circuitry. One stray fireball or bolt of ki, and the machine could end up fried.

Thus, Ranma and Kumkum hurried across the open space and descended the stair into the barracks. They trotted quickly down the central corridor, past the host of empty straw mats. Ranma snatched a torch from the wall, and the two of them went further into the bunker, past store rooms of grain sacks and casks of water. At last, they found an open, square room with the confiscated Amazon equipment: Marula's meteor hammer, a pair of bows, other weapons, and the backpack radio set. Kumkum went to the radio at once, powering it up and checking the dials.

"You know," he said, "it would be much better if we could get back to the surface. I'm not sure what all this rock will do to reception."

There was a sound, a shifting of a pebble or dirt underfoot. Ranma cast the torch at the darkness, seeing nothing, but he crept out of the doorway to the Amazon weapons to locate the source of the sound.

"Are you listening to me?" asked Kumkum. "I said we have to go out—"

"Shut up! Just get that radio working!"

Kumkum hunched over the radio, redoubling his efforts. Ranma stepped cautiously in the hallway, and—

THWACK! A Sorcerer staff stabbed him in the gut.

Cradling his stomach, Ranma looked both ways for his attacker, but he saw only a blur. _Great,_ thought Ranma. _Everybody's got a gimmick, and this guy is fast._

Ranma punched and swiped at the blur, just to get whacked and stabbed all over with the heavy metal tip of a staff. He needed some way to stop this speedster, and he could think of only one way. Ranma put a hand out in front of him, calmed his mind, and focused. Pure ice formed in shield-like shape, and Ranma crouched behind it warily. He would wait for the Sorcerer to attack again, and when the shield blocked him, Ranma would burst into a counter-attack. That was, as long as the shield could hold.

The blur returned; a staff swung, and Ranma's shield shattered. He took the brunt of the blow on his shoulder, tumbling backward. Ranma scampered to his feet and spat. "Useless again!" he cried in frustration.

Well, perhaps at what Ranma intended. The shards of ice made footing slick and slowed up the Sorcerer long enough for Ranma to see more than just an indistinct blur in low light, enough to land a solid punch.

WHAM!

The Sorcerer flew backward, tumbling into the main hall of the barracks. Ranma stalked after him to give chase, but the Sorcerer fled—this time, less of like blur and more like a man merely in fast-motion. He made for the stairs of the barracks, and Ranma weighed whether he should follow.

_Can't leave Kumquat alone here. Dammit._ Ranma poked his head into the supply room. "Hey, here's the deal: stay down, don't make too much noise, and get that damn radio working, all right? I'm gonna be out here."

"Doing what?"

"Holding them off."

At that, Kumkum gulped nervously and put the handset of the radio between his ear and his shoulder, trying to work the dials with both hands. Ranma threw the torch out to where the hallway met the greater barracks sleeping area, which was open and exposed. He breathed steadily, trying to keep his focus. Any minute now, the Sorcerers could come. All it would take was a sound, a change in the light.

Flickering shadows on the stairs to the outside.

The Sorcerers came down the steps two at a time, and already, Ranma felt their presence. He felt heavy and sluggish, like he stuck in the heavy atmosphere of Jupiter, weighed down beyond belief. He could barely move a step without feeling like he was moving a thousand-pound mass on his back. Gravity itself was fighting him, and it made him slow and nonreactive to enemy blows. A Sorcerer got his hands on Ranma, and from those points of contact, an intense heat seared Ranma's skin.

"Agh!" Ranma cried out, and he slugged the offending Sorcerer with an icy punch to keep him at bay, even while his skin still sizzled and boiled. More Sorcerers came down the stair, bringing with them all manner of impossible magics and effects. Plants began to sprout from the floor and the walls, covering the interior of the barracks in an unnatural green hue, and their thorny tendrils grasped and clawed at Ranma, stretching his body out to render him helpless.

The Sorcerers relaxed. A set of four held their staff-points at Ranma while others continued on down the hall, looking for Ranma's partner in crime.

"Hey, Kumquat, they're coming!"

Whack! A staff clubbed Ranma on the back of the head for his trouble, and that was all he needed—a throbbing pain in his head and neck. He shook it off as best he could. He just needed Kumkum to buy a little time.

Thud, thud. Two pairs of arrows took down the Sorcerers in the hallway, and the others retreated for cover behind the wall.

But it was only a temporary respite. Ranma needed something to beat these goons. He needed to win. He couldn't afford to be defeated there, to be retaken into Sorcerer hands with nothing to show for it. He _had_ to beat those people and make his way back home, or else all he'd done in coming to China would be for naught.

But thus far, the Soul of Ice had failed him. His attempts at using Sorcerer magic had been feeble and pathetic, and if he couldn't count on that to aid him, what did have but his own strength to get him through? And that wasn't enough. That strength had saved a girl from certain death, and yet it still wasn't enough. He could still be selfish and vacillating. He could be cripplingly indecisive when it came to matters of the heart.

And no amount of Sorcerer magic would change that, would it.

No, it wouldn't. As Ranma lay on the floor of the barracks, entangled in a web of vines, he realized the profound magnitude of his mistake. He'd hoped to claim his cure and, in doing so, prove his own determination and worth, but the connection between what he wanted to do and what he hoped to accomplish was tenuous at best. Even if he'd succeeded in curing himself, his deeds could fall flat and be without meaning.

He could fail.

He, Saotome Ranma, could fail.

The prospect, even just the thought, terrified him, so much so that it had driven him to recklessness and aggression. When he'd fought the Sorcerers in the rain, he beat one so badly that his own knuckles ached. When he realized the depths of the Sorcerers' scheme, he'd tried to go after the channelers without a plan, with little more than an idea of where they were and no clue how to stop them.

And every time he'd tried to find the secret to Sorcerer magic, the hope that it might lead him to salvation and freedom had simmered under the surface of his thoughts. That hope only masked his fear of failure, and both worked against him. They kept his mind frothing and unstable—hardly the cool and even-tempered state of thinking necessary to find the Soul of Ice in his heart.

But he could fail. He could definitely fail, and the only way that fear wouldn't hold him back was if he could convince himself, however flimsily, that he no longer cared. No one had the right to judge him but he himself. He extinguished all desperate hope within his heart. There was only what he felt he could do—what he would do—and how that helped or hurt him he wouldn't worry about. He couldn't afford to.

_All I can do is accept it,_ he thought. _I'm gonna make myself cold and not care one way or the other. It is what it is, and there ain't nobody who can touch me or make me change my mind._

With that resolution in mind, Ranma felt himself settle into a more familiar state—it was like the Soul of Ice, but colder, and he felt the chill all over his body. He thought only of the cold, and it came to him. It grew over his hands and legs. It encased the vines that had entangled him, and it was with mere curiosity, rather than boldness, that Ranma grabbed on the frozen vines and pulled.

Crack. The vines shattered, and Ranma broke free.

There was a shout in Chinese; Sorcerers turned their staves on Ranma, but he bolted past them, making for the room where Kumkum worked on the radio. He slipped inside, and when the Sorcerers came after him, Ranma raised his hands to the empty doorway and shut his eyes. They were coming after him, like invaders to his very soul, and he would do his best to shut them out and keep his cold heart pure.

Shink! A wall of ice formed over the doorway, and a pair of Sorcerers slammed into it headlong. They eyed the wall of ice in surprise and horror, chattering between themselves and to their comrades, and the whole group backed away, as if they'd seen a ghost.

"I don't think they expected that," said Ranma, allowing himself a slight smirk. He peered over his shoulder at the Amazon archer. "How's it coming, Kumquat?"

Kumkum shoved his own bow aside and went to the back of the radio set. "It blew a fuse. I'm trying to fix it."

"Can ya fix it faster, maybe?" Ranma nodded his head toward the ice wall. "I'm kinda out in the cold here."

"Do I look like a Chinese electrician to you?"

Ranma opened his mouth to answer, but there was a commotion outside. The Sorcerer Guard made way for someone entering the hallway, and that person walked up to Ranma's ice wall with a stern look on her face, her reddish-brown hair disheveled in the early morning.

"Nice to see you, too, Captain," said Ranma. "You look a little tired."

"What sorcery is this?" Wuya demanded, touching a finger to the ice wall.

"Well, I think it's _your_ sorcery. I'm just borrowing it. It's kinda what I do. There ain't a technique in the world that I can't figure out and pull of."

"Don't play games with us, Outsider. Surrender yourself and the Riverfolk man now. We have his companion. You don't want to make us harm her to ensure your cooperation."

Kumkum closed a panel on the radio and stared. "They have Marula? They captured her?"

"It's a bluff," said Ranma. "Don't listen to her."

"How do you know?"

"Because I do! Because I know you have to put that kind of thing out of your mind, Kumquat. You can't care about that, about her, right this second. There's something you have to do. She can wait. She has to wait, or we're all damned. You got me?"

Hesitantly, Kumkum turned the radio's front back toward him, and he held the handset to his ear as he adjusted some dials.

"Besides," said Ranma, looking back to the Captain. "I know this bitch. She likes to be straight up. Torturing people for the sake of evil isn't her style. She'll grill you if she wants something from you, but that's it. If you ask me, kinda makes her weak and bad at her job."

Wuya narrowed her eyes, but she said nothing to oppose Ranma and walked out of sight down the corridor instead.

"Yeah, that's right!" Ranma called out as loud as he could. "Just walk away. You can't do nothing to get at me, or to help your friend Tilaka like this. I know your magic; even a dozen of you can't get rid of me so easily!"

KA-PAM! A hole blew open in the wall to Ranma's right, and Wuya stepped in bearing an intense glare.

"Okay," said Ranma, leaving the ice wall to stand and melt. "I admit, I didn't think of that."

Kumkum looked up from his sitting position. He was helpless; his bow was too far to get his hands on, so he did the only thing he could: he kept talking, explaining, transmitting for someone to hear. A golden ball of shimmering ki formed in the Captain's hand. She cocked it back to hurl at Kumkum, and—

WHAM! Ranma decked her with a heavy punch, his fist covered in a block of ice. The Captain stumbled and fell into the breach, totally stunned.

"Keep talking, Kumquat!" cried Ranma. "Keep talking until you can't speak, you got me?"

Kumkum nodded, and he jabbered away on the radio faster than ever. Ranma bounded into the gap in the wall that Wuya had made, and with his heavy ice punches, he fended off a whole gaggle of Sorcerers that tried to rush in. They tried using heavy gravity to weigh him down, but they caught their own comrades in the gravity field and made the breach an obstacle for both sides. Vines grew on the walls and grabbed at Ranma, but they just as often found Sorcerer arms and legs instead.

"Enough!" cried Wuya, climbing to her feet. She took her staff in both hands, held it straight upright, and with crackling ki energy, she slammed the tip into the floor.

TIK-KOW! A deafening shockwave obliterated the walls of the room. It sent Ranma flying into the corridor, into the mass of Sorcerers who'd been unable to get past him. The radio lay in pieces, and Kumkum was prone among the broken circuits, screws, and knobs.

Sorcerers grabbed at Ranma's arms, and he didn't resist. He only looked to Kumkum, who was taken into custody, too.

"Did you reach them?" Ranma demanded. "Did you get through?"

Kumkum looked to Ranma with a dazed, confused expression, but after a couple blinks, he responded with a definite nod.

The Amazons had heard them, and they would come for Jusenkyō.

And though Ranma had fallen to the Sorcerers that day, he knew something firmly in his heart: when Amazon and Sorcerer met on the grounds of the thousand springs, he would find a way to escape in that battle. He would absolutely be freed.


End file.
